chicago trip winter ’09 • 12.13.09
anyway, back to the posting. so we stopped by the building formerly known as the sears tower. i knew sears wasn’t selling as many kenmores as they once did, and that they old sears catalogue building is a delapidated gov’t building on ponce, but i hadn’t realized they had pawned the tallest building in america.
i refuse to call a national landmark the “willis tower”, as the only willis i’ve ever known was related to arnold and mr drummond. so, i decided to make it the lillis tower…..see below.
here’s what salvador dali would think chicago looks like.
so, lillis insisted on getting a pic of me on the way into the nutcracker. joffrey ballet by the way. very impressive.
here lillis looks at one of the window displays in the marshall fields building – yes, i know they’ve changed the name, but i refuse to acknowledge it. they had a great big tree and some giant dangly ornaments inside.
this was either a sundial or a prop from an x-men movie. not sure. regardless, this pic is from the planetarium, looking back at the city.
being in other cities makes me reflect on just how much i really love cities, and specifically, living in the city. i love walking outside and being presented with parks and restaurants and stores and such. it feels vibrant. i remember from my early years at andersen consulting, the first time i got to experience living in “real” city areas. san francisco or dc or any number of other places where you could walk to so many neat things. it felt like something that i had never known that i really wanted. that feeling has become a nostalgia of sorts over the last couple of months as lillis and i have begun to consider taking advantage of interest rates to go ahead and buy a house that we could raise kids in. for the last 9 years i have had 20 restaurants within 1/2 mile of my house. my backyard is one of the largest city parks in the US. i have 2 theaters, a concert hall, the botanical gardens and a major museum all less than a 5 minute walk away. i can hop on a train and go anywhere. we have green markets and concerts and festivals just outside our door. i really do love our life, and it will be very difficult (whenever it is) to leave that behind.
after walking down to the end of the promontory and back, we ducked into the shedd acquarium. really great acquarium with a ton of really neat stuff. here lillis kisses an eel.
no worse than what she has to kiss on any other normal day 🙂
we did have a really great time this trip. one of the highlights for sure was eating at mercat a la planxa. tremendous tapas place at the south end of the north loop. we ate there before heading to the jazz showcase (which was a very good, relaxed jazz club). couldn’t recommend it enough! it really made me feel like i was back in barcelona
the next day we got delayed a little bit coming home, but still got back in time to get some pizza with my volleyball team that i’ll be coaching this winter/spring. it was a long weekend, but a very very fun one. we hadn’t gotten to take any trips in quite a while, so it was really great to “get out.” one thing i will say, though, is that while chicago is a great city, i don’t see any way that it compares to nyc at christmas time. lil and i haven’t been up to new york together in a couple of years. we need to make that happen next year.
