Come on down, Chicago… you’re a stop on the Noelle World Tour… she’s already been to Nicaragua, Taiwan, LA, Orange County, Louisville, Birmingham, AL and Seattle – and that’s this year alone!
On Thursday night I left LA and at LAX, I sat next to two former winners from CBS reality shows – the most recent Survivor and then one of the winners of The Amazing Race from a few years back – I eavesdropped to get tips… all they seemed to talk about was paparazzi, the lateness of their flight, and their shows and how unconnected they were to their co-stars.
I arrived in Chicago after a little over 4 hours of sleep on the plane. After which I promptly fell asleep waiting for my luggage. Yes, I’m silly. I got my luggage and texted my friend Amy who came to get me, after being woken up by my text – go me! I fell back asleep after she said she’d be late, yes, I did… We drove into the city on “The Kennedy” (aka Interstate 90) in Friday morning rush hour traffic and I was left off at the McCormick Seminary Guest Housing – a rather sweet pad, if I do say so myself. My first job of the day was to meet with the Dean of Students at the U of Chicago Divinity School – which was great. I enjoyed learning about the programs they have to offer and the campus is really nice. It made me miss UW and the Quad we had up there… such is life.
After a conference call with PARO, it was off to see the town with Amy and her husband Doug. We saw “The Bean,” and the Gehry-designed pavilion in Millenium Park. I have trippy photos from it, and will upload them soon. We walked a lot and a lot more. Saw a lot of things in downtown Chicago – some of the buildings are quite gorgeous! I liked wandering. The downtown area is massive, and it seemed like there were more tourists. Maybe I’m just conscious of them, because in LA I don’t find myself in places with copious amounts of tourists (Britt – do I get points for the use of copious, or only pshaw?).
We drove up Lake Shore drive – Chicagoans make great use of expanisive green spaces, I’m kind of jealous of it! I fell asleep on the drive (sorry AJ, I couldn’t keep my head up any longer) for a minute and then we were headed back downtown… I “let” AJ and Doug go home to a puppy and I wandered downtown by myself, until I met up with my church administrator, Rod, who was here for a conference.
I like surprising people and just told him that I was going to go to the Art Institute of Chicago’s museum, because it was free after 5pm… he was like, “uh, where are you?” We wandered the museum – he was on the hunt for the American Gothic painting, and I was on the hunt for Edgar Degas (shocking, I know!). We both found what we wanted and had to proceed back into the heated and humid outdoors. Man, if we thought it was humid in LA (it is, dangit!), whoa, it’s humid here… much more so.
At this point, it’s almost 9pm, and I’m exhausted after a long day and only a few hours sleep… after people watching for a while, and watching a crazy fountain, I headed “home” and found the internet. It lives in the basement of this building I’m staying in – I love it!
Next time, I’ll bring my camera cord down here and will upload pictures. Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll do it in the morning tomorrow!!
Chicago is fun, and quite nice. It’s very lush and green – like I said, I’m impressed with the usage of green spaces. In Millenium Park there are lots of gardens with an abundance of flowers – they almost look “messy” – I like them!!