Jen was going to see her sister and parents in Chicago for her nephew's birthday, and she nicely invited me so that I would have a chance to visit Chicago after she visited Paris. Contrary to expectations, I wasn't worried about a remake of a De Niro movie :)


Chicago by night, from the plane

After the birthday party itself, we used the next 3 days to go visit Chicago, and got reasonably lucky with the weather as it wasn't that good overall, but we got good visibility the when we climbed the Sears tower and also got a nice night view from the John Hancock tower

Here's the rundown:

Saturday: Nice Riverfront Walk and visit of a typical local Jazz Club: Green Mill





Sunday, after lunch and dealing with "fun" problems with United Airlines cancelling flights at the last minute for her parents, we went to visit the Pier before taking the Architectural Tour Cruise . Despite the arctic winds, it was quite enjoyable.

Monday was see lots of stuff day :) (basically going up the Sears Tower, Downtown Chicago , a Lunch at the world famous Gino's East Deep Pan Pizza, the Magnificent Mile, and to top it off, a very nice night view from the top of the John Hancock Tower, and a night view from the Planetarium).

Tuesday, I was interested in seeing the Science Museum . Unfortunately, we got a late start, and it was "take all the school kids to the science museum" day apparently, so we were overrun by kids, and it took a really long time to get in. To top it off, they also thought it would be cute to close at 16:00.
Even if due to those two problems, we didn't get to see all of it, the museum was quite nice. The highlight for me was the original U-boat that had been captured during the second world war, and a reconstitution of that capture.
The rest of the afternoon was spent visiting Chinatown.

Wednesday was the last day, and we spent most of it at the John Shedd Aquarium , which I should say is probably the best one I've seen so far. While their dolphin show was actually the worst I had seen :), the living reef expo was very authentic and detailed (since I had already seen most of it in real life).
We finished the day by rollerblading up the waterfront to the pier, seeing a pathetic excuse for a 3d movie futuristic tour of Chicago, and flying back home, with The Big Blue , directors cut as a private moving showing in the plane.

I definitely had a great time, and owe much thanks to the hosts, and the tour guide :)

The Millenium Park