So I missed a day – what can I say, old habits die hard. Now you’ll just have to endure reading about two days in a row.
On Wednesday we decide to go all-out tourist. I put my baseball cap on, Uri took his backpack and we went out to see the sites on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. We started by going up to the observatory on the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building. Being tourists, we paid the $15 admissions pass to the observatory instead of going up to the lounge/ bar on the 96th floor and paying $5 for a bottle of water. In hindsight it was probably the right choice, since the fee included an audio tour narrated by David Schwimmer of the sights seen through the windows and a bit of Chicago history. This was good since we were too lazy/ cheap to buy a good Chicago guidebook.
After that we started walking down the famous street. While the buildings were impressive, Uri and I both agreed that NYC is much more impressive. We thing part of it is that the streets of New York are more crowded, the buildings are closer and the street itself is narrower so you feel more closed in, smaller as compared to the large impressive city. Sort of like the logic behind the way cathedrals were built in the Middle Ages. Anyway, the Magnificent Mile doesn’t have that.
The buildings themselves are nice, Chicago has a lot of art-deco architecture, and I really like that aesthetic, but at the end of the day, they are sky-rises, and the ground level of most of them are just fancy stores that you can see in most large cities in the US. So, as uncultured as it might seem, other than the observatory the biggest highlight for us was probably the Lego store.
It was only on the next day that we actually reached the end of the Magnificent Mile - Millennium Park, home of the famous Chicago land mark “the silver bean”. What a great park! The bean itself is really nice; a smart idea the weird shape allows you to see a reflection of the Chicago skyline and the sky. What’s funny is that to see that reflection, you actually have to walk to “the other side” of the bean, as in - make your way around it from where you first see it as you enter the park. But most of the tourist just stop either at “the front” of the bean, or underneath it, since there you can see a neat 4 way refection of yourself. We also go to hear the Chicago Symphony rehearsing in the park’s amphitheater (designed by Frank Gary). They apparently were paying Beethoven’s 9th (that’s what the guy in one of the visitor’s information stands said). Despite the fact that neither of us are classical music buffs, we both really enjoyed it, and sat and listened for a while. When we finally left we agreed that combination of the fantastic acoustics with the effect of seeing a live performance (including the conductors very passionate and somewhat animated movements) greatly contributed to our enjoyment, it pulled us into the piece, which is something that hearing it on the radio was never able to do.
After that we hit the road again – back to Michigan for the next leg of the trip.
What?!? No food stories?!? Well – of course not, I was just saving them to the end so that you’ll keep on reading. So for “brunch” on Wednesday (more just on our way to the Hancock Canter) we saw a cute cupcake shop, more like cupcake boutique, and Uri had a cupcake. He went with the flavor of the day – chocolate with soft caramel center, though I really would have wanted him to take one of the weirder cupcakes like the maple bacon – a corn cupcake with bacon bits and a maple-cream cheese frosting. For lunch we went to the Frontera Grill, a restaurant owned by Rick Bayless who some of you might have seen if you watch either food network or Top Chef. I don’t want to say too much about it, since it wasn’t that good, maybe I just didn’t spend enough time reading the menu and then ordered wrong, but what I got was very different from what I was expecting. Oh well... you win some, you lose some. For dinner we went to a pizza place called Burt’s Place. This is the same place we drove to on Monday and discovered was closed. What a quirky experience: To start with the good – the pizza was great, and the atmosphere was fantastic (or maybe the other way around). So what was bad? Well – since the place has such weird hours, we decided it’s probably best to make reservations, so we called in the morning but got that strange sort of ringing like there’s something wrong with the line. We forgot about it for a while, but when we got back to the hotel at 5 pm we tried again. Burt answered the phone and as he took my reservation he asked what pizzas we’ll want. Huh? Apparently, to make a reservation you have to order in advance and then when you get there the pizzas are ready. I asked to call back, since some friends were joining us, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t ordering something that they wouldn’t eat. It took me about 45 minutes to do this, and so by the time I called back that busy/ off the hook signal was back. Oh boy… what to do? Should we give up and just go for one of those “The original pie! #1 pizza in Chicago!” places? But I wanted to try Burt’s pizza! And I did call! If he takes the phone off the hook, why didn’t he tell me that I have to call back before 5:30? What we finally decide to do was try to get there earlier than we had told him, and hope that he would be sympathetic. When we got there, we were greeted by his wife Sharon, I say greeted as though she was super nice, but actually it took her time to come around, we told her the story and she went to check with Burt. Then when she came back I emphasized a little more that we had come 15 minutes early, and that we were ready to order and just wait for our friends to come and the pizza to be ready. I think with that she understood that we do have respect for their craft or something, and so we became ok. The pizza was indeed great. At the end of the night we actually got into a whole discussion with her, and then with Burt. Turns out she’s Jewish, and very pro-Israel, so who knows, maybe there will be a Burt’s place in Israel sometime in the future.
The next day was our last day in Chicago – so food wise it was the hardest. This city has so much to offer, and unlike NYC, it’s not like we’ll be back soon. What to do? Ever since that elk hot-dog, Uri wanted to go back to Hot Doug’s, but there are other hot dogs that are supposed to be good too…. Decisions, decisions. This is what ended up happening: we went for a hot dog at Wiener Circle, which is a neighborhood called Lincoln Park (since it’s located near Lincoln Park). Small digression here – really nice neighborhood, finally we saw how people who live in the city actually live, and we like it. When we parked the car we saw that there was a Five Guys there too. Since most of you don’t share Uri’s infatuation with US politics: I will explain that when Matt Lauer interviewed Obama in the White House, the two of them went for lunch at Five Guys (hey didn’t fly to Chicago, it’s a chain that started in Virginia), which Obama said was one of his favorite burger joints. So after the hotdog, we went there for cheeseburger. I do actually see why Obama likes the place.
What then, well I said that while I really liked Burt’s pizza, I don’t really know to compare it to a classic Chicago pie, and that I feel that maybe I should taste one of the really famous Chicago pizzas, so I called a Lou Malnati’s I found in the GPS and ordered a small pie. Now I know that Burt’s was hands down better. And that’s it. We were on the highway again, headed towards northern Michigan. On the way we stopped for pie at a place I read about in the Lonely Planet guide – Crane’s Pie Pantry Restaurant. The book had actually taken us to the wrong place, and we had to backtrack a bit. Initially I thought it wouldn’t be worth it, but it sort of was the pie was good (though I think my apple pie is better) but the place was really charming, a nice place to take a few minutes to rest. Today we’ll go hiking in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, and then we’ll cross the border to Canada.
Until then, have a great weekend and good night. Oh… and happy birthday mom!
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