Sunday 19 July 2009

Chicago - Take One

Our first morning in the US we were of course still on Greenwich Mean Time and therefore awoke quite early; so, we went for a walk in the park across the road.


There were several people out walking their dogs and I stopped to ask a woman how to get to the lake, which was near by (that's Lake Michigan). This annoyed Bill a bit. When I asked why he thought it was cheating to ask directions, he replied that he just preferred to wander and find things out, so I didn't tell him what the woman said and let him get on with wandering. This was particularly fun as we began to hear lions and elephant sounds and he was looking around in amazement. I knew we were nearing a zoo, but he had to see the sign to understand what he was hearing.


One couldn't help admiring the impressive skyline. I've always thought of Chicago as being a dirty, crowded, ugly place full of hard, ugly people; no doubt there are places in the city which would match that description. However, my first visit to Chicago was full of very pleasant surprises.

We did find the lake and of all things, it had a beach. I saw Lake Erie sometime back in the 80s when visiting family who lived in Cleveland, Ohio, but where I saw it wasn't a beach but a park and a concrete wall. Lincoln Park's beach was fabulous with paths full of cyclists,


runners and dog walkers. I was well impressed with the facilities for exercise, which included drinking fountains (I think they call them 'bubblers' up north) and public toilets.

A little bizarrely, there were also people practicing tug of war and


doing tai chi with not much on.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you find the deep dish pizza place. I forget the name. It is near downtown, in an old house and you can either eat upstairs or down. We went in about '77.
Jo

Shelley said...

No, we didn't. I can't even remember what we ate - I think we had steaks most chances, as good ones are hard to get here in England. We got so well fed at the family places we stayed it was becoming hard to look at food towards the end of the holiday...