CHICAGO!

****  picture heavy (but great pics)– just warning you ***

Being born and raised in Florida most all my life, I rarely have experienced a big city.  Paula and I both were country girls walking around the big city of Chicago in awe.   We don’t have skyscrapers here.   We don’t have subways.  And only a few bigger cities have cabs, even then you rarely walk out on the street to hail a cab; you would usually have to call a taxi service and schedule one.  

Needless to say, we had a great time. After getting checked in to our hotel, we took a cab to downtown Chicago.  Of course, our taxi driver couldn’t speak English really well and I was starting to panic as I couldn’t understand if he was telling us he was taking us to 400 something or that the fare was going to be $400.   We finally got there for about $40.    Whew!
Our first stop was to find the Marilyn Monroe statue that had just previously been unveiled. One of our scrapping friends, Paula Massie, told us we HAD to go see it. Not knowing what else to do first, this seemed like a great place to start.

Marilyn was not hard to find.   At 26 feet tall, she stands out.   I took pictures and Paula went to stand underneath for ratio aspect.   Can you believe that she was too shy to look up her skirt?  I would have looked and I’m kicking myself for not going over there myself to look. 

We stopped in a little coffee shop for tea and cranberry scones.  While there, we met two sweet young male baristas.   They were so willing to sit down with us and give us suggestions of places to go, things to see and places to eat.  One was nice enough to write it all out for us and draw little maps.  I’m saving that to add to an art journal. 

We saw beautiful architecture as well as the more realistic signs of city life. 

This stripped bike just cracked us up. It was totally stripped, but is still locked to the pole.

We figured out how to buy a ticket and get on the subway.  We even had a little entertainment while waiting for our train. 

We took the subway to China Town – Lo Beijing, walked around some more and then ate dinner.   By that time, unfortunately, we were overheated, and just wiped out.  We had walked quite a bit.  Someone would tell us, “It’s only 4 blocks down,” and we calculated that 1 city block is 3 Chicago blocks.   So, we walked about 12 blocks for one leg of the adventure that was only to be 4.

We then took the subway back and figured out how to get from the Red line to the Blue line to take us back to Rosemont where we were staying.   I don’t know how people can sleep on the subway and just KNOW when to wake up and get off.  I mean some of these people were out cold until right before their stop.  
When we got off the train, we realized that the 1 block to our hotel was really about 5 more blocks down a major highway, so we hailed a cab, went back to the hotel, had a few drinks and called it a night.   It was a fun day exploring the city of Chicago.   I think I’d like to visit some big cities more often.  I loved the energy of The City.


Thanks for stopping by and touring Chicago with me.