Chicago

Last week my girls and I went into Chicago to see Wicked. We had been to Chicago before, but never really walked around the city. We always had a destination: Museum of Science and Industry, Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, American Girl Place, Navy Pier, etc. We would always hit our destination and then hop back in the car and head home.

This time, we had plenty of time after we parked our car to walk around the city a bit before the show. My girls loved it. It was a beautiful day to be out and walking around. We were in a pretty crowded area of town, so there were quite a few people out on the streets. While they both said they wouldn't want to live in a city, they enjoyed being there for the day.

The theater where our show was being held is situated a block or so away from our local ABC news station. They have a ground floor set with big glass windows so you can watch the news live from outside. Sometimes they pan the crowd outside and you can see yourself on TV. After the show, around 5:00pm, we knew the news was on. So we raced over to the the studio. The girls got to see up close the people we always watch on TV. I am kind of addicted to this news station. I watch them every night and also really like the weather man, Jerry Taft. And there they all were! Our favorite weather man even waved to the crowd. And the camera did pan and my girls were on TV for a few seconds. I knew I should have set the tivo before we left the house, darn it! I had intended to have the girls see the studio, I just didn't think we would be there during a news taping. Maybe next time.

We also went into a Border's bookstore while we there. It was the largest Border's I have ever been in, it was three stories tall and had escalators! Now before you think I live in hicksville, you need to know my girls have been on escalators before. Just not very often. So they had to go up and down the escalators a few times. My oldest is 13, and still thinks it is fun to ride an escalator, who knew? Of course what they really want to do is to someday have the opportunity to run up a down escalator. For some reason that is on both of their to do lists!

We saw a few other theaters, as we were in the theater district. We saw the El trains and tracks. We saw taxi cabs and policemen on horses. We saw swanky restaurants. And of course we got to see Wicked, which was the absolute highlight of the day. When it was over, my 13 year old wanted to go the Sbarro restaurant we saw while walking around. She just loves Sbarro and the closest one to us is in a mall about 30 mins away. So while we had a plethora of marvelous restaurants to choose from, we went to Sbarro! Hey, how much culture can a person have in a day?