About Town

We've been taking weekends to wander around Chicago some more. Here you see the Water Tower, one of the few buildings to survive the Great Fire of 1871. We spent the evening on the Hancock Building's 94th-floor observation deck, then got ice cream at the Ghiradelli on the corner. I'm renewing my love of opulent window-shopping on the Magnificent Mile. I actually had a dream about going to the mall with Patrick and looking at iridescent dresses with huge skirts.




Buckingham Fountain
at night. The largest illuminated fountain in the world, supposedly. The lights change colors quite spectacularly, but this picture came out
the best.




Patrick's dad was here last weekend. We wandered around Evanston (visiting Patrick's great-grandfather's house), Millenium Park (free concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), and the Chicago Cultural Center, which used to house Chicago's main public library. It features two magnificent glass domes, one by Tiffany and this one by Millet. The light on the floor is not sunlight shining through the windows, but artificial light shining through tiles in the floor. The overall effect is quite beautiful.




We went on one of those architectural boat tours of the Chicago River, too. Then we wandered around downtown, past the most beautiful Bloomingdale's in the world. It was built in 1912 in Islamic Revival style for the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Now it's Bloomies Furnishings and Housewares or something. Anyway, we found this LEGO man in another mall nearby. He has a chicken (LEGO also, of course) on his head and a busted Lego egg on his shoulder. But look at his face! Have you ever seen such humanity!?!

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