Chicago

We hadn't planned ahead to go to the Chicago aquarium, but I couldn't resist. And I was glad we went - it was one of the better aquariums we visited. I can believe it's one of the most visited aquariums in the U.S. - it was very busy. (This trip was probably a bit of an aquarium overdose for Shelley but she was a good sport about it.)

Other than the aquarium, we enjoyed wandering around Chicago and gawking at all the skyscrapers. The parks along the lake are nice and contain quite a lot of public art in addition to the "bean" (Cloud Gate) and the Gehry band shell (Pritzker Pavilion). We also visited REI (the U.S. equivalent to MEC) partly because we know someone who works there. Just by chance we went to the Starbucks at Rush and Oak, which turned out to be one of their flagship stores, with an upper level where they even serve wine! However the coffee was better at Intelligentsia. We enjoyed suppers at Mercat a la Planxa Tapas Restaurant and Trattoria No. 10. With all the big office towers, restaurants are very busy downtown at lunch, but we managed to find a nice quiet lunch at Terzo Piano in the Art Institute of Chicago. There are lots of museums, but that's not really our thing and the only one we went to was the Museum of Contemporary Photography, which is quite small but the current exhibit (Victoria Sambunaris) had some nice photos.

Although there wasn't any snow on the ground, temperatures were below freezing and we had to begin our acclimatization back to winter :-(

(click to view photos)

Inside the Starbucks at Rush & Oak

See also: all the posts from this trip and all the photos from this trip