Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
55. Big cities. I just love 'em. I've been to San Francisco and Washington DC more than other big cities (and some would say these aren't, and in the case of DC they'd be more right than wrong, but anyway), but I've also been to New York a couple times and Chicago a small handful. I love Chicago.
Red-eyed out to Chi for SPEP, Wednesday night to Thursday morning. After getting some breakfast and waiting out our hotel reservation we got in, rested up a bit, then hit the town. We hiked 4 miles from the River North Westin, around the Magnificent Mile and over to the Navy Pier, then back, that afternoon. Friday we did the conference morning sessions and then headed back out, this time south, around Grant Park, all the way over to Shedd Aquarium so I could show Lauren the view of Lake Michigan from there. Along the way you get views like this:
Once you're right at the aquarium, turning toward the lake, the skyline is to your left, and nothing but lake in front of you. The wind at that point is wonderful.
One of the coolest things about Chicago is of course architecture. The skyscraper was born there, and there are fine examples all over the freaking place. Better yet, there are skyscrapers of every era, from the teens to now. This gives you incredible juxtapositions: a 19th century Louis Sullivan monumental hunk of rock next to a postmodern glass frolic, behind a high-modern steel tower and a concrete obelisk.
We didn't close Berghoff's, like I did with a gaggle of Duquesne philosophy grad students years ago (after untold pitchers of German beer and untold platters of German food). We didn't get a hotdog from a street vendor, because there weren't any in evidence. We did get a Chicago pizza, which I love, but Lauren wasn't thrilled by. Best of all, was the walking. Chicago is a fantastic place to walk. Hazardous, but delightful.
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