Chicago! (Part Two)

Yes, we are still on the same day...I told you we saw quite a bit on Saturday. We made our way to Navy Pier for the fireworks that night.  We were there a bit early so grabbed some dinner and and rode the Ferris wheel.  Then we ran into an old friend of Sarina's, got some frozen-fruity drinks and watched the fireworks.  The fireworks that night were Halloween themed; that basically means that they played Marylin Manson during the show.  We then made our way back to the bus stop and called it a night.

Sunday we ventured up north to see Wrigley Field.  Unfortunately the Cubs' season had just ended.  But, it was still great to see the field (it's a lot smaller than I thought it would be) and the bleachers on top of the surrounding buildings.

From there we went to one of Sarina's favorite places, the zoo.  It's really an impressive zoo, there are a lot of animals in well kept up habitats, they are all active and well fed.  And the best part is the zoo is free!  One small word of advice for those parents of young children reading this...please do not encourage your children to bang on the glass when visiting any place where there are animals on the other side of glass.  (I know, parents love it when people without kids give advice about kids...but this really isn't one of those things that changes with experience.  It is always not cool to bang on the glass.)  

After we left the zoo, we walked through a park and across a highway to the beach on lake Michigan.  When Sarina told me she went to the beach, I figured it was like the 'beaches' here at some of our lakes in Texas...a bit of grass, maybe some dark brown sand and some rocks.  But, it's more like a beach in California with great sand and even sand volleyball courts. 

We walked along the beach for awhile and then took a bus to the Sears Tower.  By the time we watched the informational video and made our way up 110 floors, the sun had set and we had a great view of the lights of the city.  After the Tower, Sarina took me to the Grand Lux Cafe for dinner.

On Monday, before I had to catch my flight home, we did some shopping in Sarina's neighborhood.  There are some great little  boutiques in the area, but I couldn't bring myself to spend any money that day.  I found some great pieces, especially in Bonnie and Clyde's, however I think since it was my last day there I was feeling a little shopped out.  Maybe next visit!  I had fun.  Thanks for having me up, Sarina!

Chicago! (Part One)

Recently I took advantage of a long weekend to fly up to Chicago and spend some time with my sister-in-law Sarina.  We covered quite a bit of ground in 4 days.  I really loved the atmosphere of the city and was lucky that this late in the season there was such beautiful weather.  It was in the mid-70's all weekend.  Perfect for all the exploring that we did.  

The first night I got in we made it down to experience the city's Second Friday Art night with galleries up and down South Halsted Street open.  By far my favorite was Logsdon 1909 gallery and studio.  They had an absolutely packed space with works ranging in mediums from ceramics to video installation.  

The second day we slept in a bit, but then finally made it up and around to quite a few places.  First stop was the Museum of Contemporary Photography.  There was an exhibition of pretty good photos from Dave Anderson, but what was really interesting to me was the combination of Anderson's exhibition with another exhibition of Farm Security Administration photographs.

We then walked across Michigan Ave and into Grant Park.  They were setting up for a marathon that day, so we made our way through the maze of port-o-potties and fences looking for Buckingham Fountain.  What we came across was a construction zone.  Currently the fountain is being completely refurbished, including the landscaping surrounding it.  

 

Next we came across 'the Bean' (Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate), grabbed a hot dog and just watched the other visitors  interact with the reflective surfaces.  It's really an endless source of fascinating photographs.  We saw a myriad of brides and a great quiencera party.  Her escorts had on pin striped suits with wallet chains and bright pink ties.

We continued on to the The Art Institute of Chicago to look around.  It's quite large and really could take a whole day in itself to do the place justice.  We picked a couple of topics to cover and followed the map to just those galleries and of course spent some time in the gift shop.  They did have quite an impressive collection of art books for sale and I can never resist.

Next we hopped on the bus and took a fairly short ride to the Museum of Contemporary Art.  Most of the galleries were under installation, it was getting late and they were setting up for a private event later that evening.  However, we did get to see one floor of  their permanent collection.  There was a room full of Cindy Sherman photographs which was great to see and another gallery which I was quite impressed with was a collection of Bruce Nauman works. We spent some time investigating an installation of a plexi-glass maze with 4 video monitors facing into the maze, a projection of a rat finding it's way through the maze and a surveillance camera that intermittently spliced real-time images of the room with the video of the rat in the maze.  Fascinating!  Then we ended up in the museum store, where I found all kind of great things.  Lucky for us the store was open an hour later than the galleries.

Since I am taking so long to compose this blog, I've decided to call this Part One...more to come.