Chicago, Day 1

And a full day it was. We are only spending two days here, so we are trying to balance seeing and doing as much as possible without tiring ourselves out too much. It is easier said than done when we are on foot, walking around everywhere in the heat (31C) and humidity at 51%. But I think we did well today.

Our first stop was the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower). Apparently, Sears Roebuck and Company only used the building for the first 18 years after it was built, starting in 1973, but the company that bought it, Willis Group Holdings, didn't rename it until 2009. Perhaps they thought its iconic association with Chicago shouldn't be messed with at one point, I'm not sure. Anyway, we went up to the 103rd floor to see the view, which was pretty incredible, and I have some great photos that I will share in an album as well as the one you see here. The elevator is quite speedy, too. I think it was only a 2 or 3 minute trip to get up. I'd hate to be at the top if a fire broke out, though! The only thing we didn't do was the ledge, the glass-bottomed part where you can look down. I was going to wait for my husband to do it himself, due to my fear of heights, but the wait was anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour and didn't seem worth the wait, especially when you want to maximise your time in a city. One thing that surprised me was seeing all the spiders, specifically orb-weavers, outside the top floor. They have webs all over the place! And I wonder how long it takes them to walk up the building.

After we finished at the tower, we left to go find lunch and decided to try a Chicago style hot dog from a food truck we had seen on our walk to the Willis Tower. They were really tasty, made with sweet relish, hot pickled peppers, mustard, a dill pickle, and celery salt. The wiener itself is an all-beef one, which made me happy since pork products tend not to agree with my stomach. The bun must also be a poppy seed bun.

Once we had eaten lunch and stopped for a coffee, we headed over to see The Bean. It's a huge bean-shaped mirror-type structure--a sculpture, that is. From there, it was time to go back to the hotel to recuperate. We are lucky to be staying at a hotel downtown, which makes all of these places very close to walk to.

City skyline at sunset

In the evening, we decided to do an architecture river tour, which takes you down the 3 branches of the Chicago River and tells you about some of the history of the city and its archicture. For someone like me, who doesn't really understand or appreciate a lot about most architecture, it was interesting and enlightening in a way that leaves me with information that I will probably use to see other buildings I come across in a new light. It is something I can do with art, having taken some art history, but I have never learned about architecture or what it all means, why buildings are designed as they are. I have an appreciation for something I didn't have before, and that's part of the joy of travelling, is when you can take away new information that makes you know more about the world and appreciate it more.  One thing I forgot to ask the tour guide was about bird deaths with all these glass-sided buildings. Toronto has actually changed its building codes for skyrises where companies actually have to design buildings to prevent bird deaths. So I just looked up this information, and according to this article in the Chcago Tribune, Chicago has one of the most dangerous skylines in the US when it comes to bird deaths. As a birder, that makes me a little sad. It sounds like there are at least some bird conservation groups that are trying to do something about it. Here is a link to the river tour album (the rest of Chicago, I will post later in another album): https://photos.app.goo.gl/2eeN3yqGokuuqCWu8