OK. I'm starting to recover from a week's worth of work and travel. I am not exaggerating when I say, I believe I actually got a half hour to myself one day - and even that half hour was rushed. The rest of the time I was working my butt off like you wouldn't believe. My average morning wake up time from Sat thru Thurs was around 6 AM - starting with a 4:45 AM wake-up time on Saturday to get off to my flight. I am not a morning person, so you can imagine what those mornings did to me. And I worked all day at the conference Sat to Mon evening, with dinners out every night, ending with a symposium dinner on Monday. Tuesday we started our meetings when the rest of our colleagues joined us in the windy city. The conference, while exhausting, was fun and educational for sure. I was able to take 2 hours to myself on Sunday afternoon between seminars and dinner meetings and met up with a friend and colleague who stayed with me there (although she never saw me apart from that afternoon). We took a quick boat trip up the river and out to Lake Michigan. It was raining a bit and foggy, so we didn't get the view of the city that you would normally, but it was nice to do it regardless.
I found Chicago to be friendly and clean. I was told that the downtown core, where we were staying, is the nicest part of the city, so it leaves a bit of a biased point of view for me - particularly when I wasn't able to see much of the city, save for cab rides between the hotel and convention centre. However, what I saw makes me want to go back some day and experience it more. The architecture is definitely cool. The way the city was developed is really neat. Apparently it burned down and they had to rebuild at one time. They had been dumping all their sewage and other waste into the river and it caught on fire. That's when they built a lock at the entrance to the lake and forced the river in the opposite direction so as to move waste out and treat it properly. So I guess that's where "second city" gets its name. Due to the fog on the day that I took that boat trip I wasn't able to see the top of the Sears Tower, but it's still the tallest building in the city. And they've done a lot of neat things to move traffic, like Wacker St, which has 'upper' and 'lower' parts so that trucks can unload downstairs and not impede the flow.
(it's the one in the middle there)
Spring had arrived in Chicago already - there was no snow left and I saw LOTS of cyclists! I actually forgot how much snow we had here, so was surprised when I looked out the airplane window before we landed. Eek! One day I noticed the view from my hotel room window and saw I had a great view! And it was beautiful outside.
One of the final things I did in Chi-Town was the original House of Blues. The company had rented the entire place out for us on Wednesday night. That was a lot of fun! They had a Blues Brothers cover band play for us, and some Canadian comedian (I can't remember who - but I think he was pretty big because everyone else knew who he was - I'm hopeless with those things).
On the way home I got to thinking that Chicago is a lot like NYC, but smaller, cleaner, friendlier... and maybe even better shopping! So, next time you are thinking of going to NY for a shopping weekend, I'd reconsider and think about the windy city. Which, by the way, wasn't very windy. ;)
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