Reading over Miss Jennifer's post regarding her recent trip to Chicago inspires me to follow suit! As part of Amber's birthday present (which was Sept 25). I told her to pick out a city in the continental US for a Fri-Mon visit. She chose Chicago, which was great, as neither she nor her parents had ever been. Looking on the Internet for Things to Do, we procured tickets for Wicked on Saturday night and noticed that Cymbeline, playing at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, was receiving rave reviews so we grabbed tix for that as well.
When we arrived Friday at our hotel (Amalfi Hotel, chosen in honor of our fabulous stay on the REAL Amalfi Coast in March--though there was NOTHING Italian about the hotel whatsoever), we were starved and went in search of vittles and libation. We chose a steak place around the corner. Amber ordered wine and was asked for her ID; the waitress (a total Ally Sheedy look-alike) noted that her birthday had just passed and brought us all out a complementary cheesecake with candle. We were so stuffed we could barely look at the cheesecake, but judging from the small taste I had, it was very good!
Friday night, Corky wimped out on us, but Amber and I walked from the hotel to the Navy Pier (we thought it was closer than it was!). We went into an "amazing" maze of mirrors (rather lame) and listened to a band for a while before taking the free trolley back, a real foot and wallet saver!On Saturday we all went to the Shedd Aquarium for more good times. I've not been to the Atlanta Aquarium, so I can't offer any comparisons, but this one was fabulous. We saw lots and lots of pretty little fishies, and some big scary gross bizarre underwater life as well. And the cute little newborn Beluga whale!
View of skyline from Aquarium:
The performance of Wicked that evening was great, as most reviews will attest: beautiful set, music, singing. and the Oriental Theatre was roccoco fab:
But the performance of Cymbeline was incredible! Smallish theatre, excellent acting--Easily the best Shakespeare performance I've ever seen, including Midsummer Night's Dream in Stratford!
Here Amber and I are by the bust of some dude whom they named the theatre after:
Later that night we went to the top of the Sears Tower. I was bummed that it was all glassed in. I thought it would be open to air, like the Empire State Building. Amber and I had our picture made (the kind you buy at the end) but since I had on a blue shirt, the building-background they insert later for the tromp l'oiel effect obliterated my shirt so that I appeared as a head levitating in the Chicago skyline. I found this to be poor planning and shoddy workmanship on the creators of the photo-effect (I mean, blue shirts ARE pretty common!) and refused to fork over the 21 clams they wanted for the four pix. One was sent to me through email, but for "viewing only." No sharing.
We had a very late dinner that evening, then back to take stupid pictures in the hotel room. Like this one, in my blue shirt: (notice the corner of Corky's book to the left of the photo; he has clearly learned to totally ignore me-- hanging upside down from the bed, wearing lampshades, walking down stairs on my hands, getting naked in public fountains, etc etc....)
Monday morning was rainy and much colder, which was fine, as we were leaving! Ta ta, Chicago!
