A Quintessentially Chicago Weekend

This weekend, my dad and his girlfriend, Connie, flew in to spend the weekend with me here in Chicago. We had a great time exploring (and for me re-exploring) the typical touristy places of Chicago. We did everything from Chicago style pizza to the Sears Tower, a drive through the Magnificent Mile and along Lakeshore drive, and a concert at the House of Blues. As I was downloading my pictures I realized that Connie actually took a majority of the pictures of us and my dad took a LOT (as always) of the buildings and things like that). But here are a few from our little adventure:



So, our first day we drove downtown and made our way to the top of the Sears Tower. I've been living in Chicago for 8 months now and I still have not been up there (the $13 ticket price could have something to do with it!). But, I got the bird's-eye view of Chicago on a beautiful, clear day. I was amazed at how fast the elevator rockets you up to the top. Your ears can feel the pressure both going up and coming down it goes so fast! These pictures are taken of downtown (1). You can see the black Hancock building. And (2) you can see "Museum Campus" on the Lake which has the Aquarium, the Planetarium and the Field museum (which we went to the next day).


We had Chicago-style pizza and then headed to the House of Blues to see Big Head Todd and GB Leighton. It was a great concert. Both bands were a mixture of rock and blues, not the classically deep blues I was expecting. But, I really enjoyed it.








Our second day we took the train downtown, rather than deal with parking, and we went to the Field Museum. The worlds largest and most complete T-Rex skeleton, nicknamed Sue, resides there. They also have an amazing exhibit of Egyptian mummies, 23 in all. There's enough stuff in this museum to take a couple of days to browse through. So, we hit the highlights. I'm definitely wanting to go back though, and to the aquarium, and the Edward Hopper exhibit that they have at the Art Institute. Anyways, we explored the Field Museum, walked through Grant Park and Millennium Park where my dad paused for a deep meditative moment on top of the BP Bridge (the metal, twisty, windy one across the freeway) and counted the stories in a couple of his favorite buildings. We took our picture(s) in The Bean (a metal sculpture in Millennium Park that looks like a gigantic, shiny bean. We finished out the evening with Thai food, tea, and browsing through Borders bookstore (Where I bought The Kite Runner, the movie, finally!! I brought it home and cried through half of it! I couldn't believe how much they made China, where it was filmed, look like Kabul. It was incredible!).

Our final day we stuck around the 'burbs and went to church, saw a movie (Vantage Point...liked it for the most part despite it's few political jabs and I also get frustrated that every show, be it a movie or a tv series like 24, its nearly always a Muslim that is the terrorist. Let's all remember people that not all Muslims are terrorists. And not all terrorists are Muslims. A small percentage of the Muslim world uses terrorism to make a point. Just like the Muslim world needs to know that not all western women are prostitutes. We fail one another when we live by stereotypes and we do a disservice when we believe those stereotypes...just a small, ahem, soapbox of mine. ) We had Chicago-style hotdogs to complete our classically-Chicago weekend. It was great to meet Connie and to spend time with my dad. I don't get to see my family nearly enough, even with being here in the States.