Would you believe that the main motivating reason for including Chicago in our trip was to visit the Field Museum of Natural History to see these two lions from a place called Tsavo, Kenya, which were the basis of the movie, Ghost and the Darkness. It's one of our faves and we knew that the actual lions on which the film is based were mounted in the Field Museum of Natural History, and so that's why we decided to visit Chicago. And we visited the Museum and we saw 'our' lions. Lion manes vary quite a lot of the range of the lion and at Tsavo the males don't have any real mane development.
One of the other amazing highlights of this museum, among many, was also seeing 'Sue' the most intact and from what I remember, largest Tyranosaurus rex skeleton in existence.
We spent the best part of a day at the Museum and then walked across the road to the She'd Aquarium, another world-class tourist attraction, where we spent the remainder of the day.
Crabby Kim wasn't actually at the Aquarium, but she was on the wall of a used car yard about 40 minutes walk from the apartment we were staying in. I went for a big walk the afternoon I arrived (Steve flew in later that night). Not surprisingly, Crabby Kim, took my eye.
Agh, so here's a single picture from the She'd Aquarium of some of the many sea jellies (used to be called jelly fish). It seems that these animals are very easy to maintain and every Aquarium worth its salt (water) has to have a variety of these animals exhibited under different lighting conditions to give them red or yellow or blue hues. They do make very interesting exhibits and photos, so at this moment in history where we have just become photography-obsessed, these animals are perfect. Its very easy to get amazing images which of course can then be immediately uploaded to the social media platform of your choice and shared with your friends.
We stayed about 15 minutes from the city centre in an airbnb apartment in this building. Our apartment was on the third floor. We had the second bedroom in the apartment of a couple. We hadn't used airbnb previously but stayed in airbnb places in New York, Vancouver and San Francisco, as well as here in Chicago. The neighbourhood was very nice, the streets leafy and we were a ten minute walk from the subway into the city.
One of our highlights in Chicago was to meet up with our friends, Andrew (in the red singlet) and Lee from near Newcastle. They were in Chicago as part of their trip, with Andrew's parents, and so we caught up with them two nights and had a great time.
So what else did we do apart from staring at a couple of dead lions? Chicago is truly a beautiful city, perhaps not so much so during their harsh and long winters, but being there just at the end of summer was an absolute delight. The city has lots of fabulous parklands with amazing public art like Cloud Gate which reflected its surroundings so beautifully.
And this is the view from underneath. We took an open-top double decker bus around the city; we learned about the city's architecture from one of the best tour guides I have ever encountered on the famous Chicago architecture boat cruises; we ate our way through the equally famous Chicago deep dish pizza (which we both thought was a little over-rated); saw a play, 'Some Men' with Andrew and Lee; all that kind of thing.
Including going up the top of one of the tallest sky scrapers in Chicago, the John Hancock Centre, which gave 360 degree views of the city and across to four other states. Other highlights were having a look at a Whole Foods store, which has an excellent commitment to sustainability, ethical consumption and treatment of staff; Boys Town, the gay and lesbian precinct, which was a ten minute stroll from where we were staying; and enjoying a glass of sparkling rose in Lincoln Park after a long day of sight seeing and wandering. So after four days in Chicago we caught the bus and the train out to the airport to fly to NYC.
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