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Hello from New York City (1) - First Impressions of the Big Apple
So yesterday morning our American Airways flight (booked for free with my Airmiles) left at 7:13 am to bring us to the Big Apple, a place I had always had a fascination with, but only had visited twice very briefly in my life,and that more than 10...
How To Travel The World For Free
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In Flight Phones Disappearing
Editor: The following article is offered for your free use, providing the author bio at the end is included. IN FLIGHT PHONES DISAPPEARING By Laura Quarantiello © Tiare Publications 274 words If you expect to be able to phone home from 35,000...
Russian Thanksgiving Dinner - Mystery Ingredients
Living for a year in Siberia was bound to results in a few
laughs. There was no funnier time than my effort to celebrate
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As an American male, my idea of cooking was dropping by the
local Chinese restaurant on...
TIPS FOR FIRST-TIMERS TO LAS VEGAS
When visiting Las Vegas for the first time it can be quite overwhelming. The following tips can help you enjoy your vacation and relieve unwanted stress. Before You Leave - Book As Much As You Can Online Las Vegas is an extremely busy place. The...
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Hello from Chicago - What a fabulously photogenic city!
Yesterday I woke up at 5:00 am Chicago time and I figured I
might as well get ahead of the crowd at the Arlington House
Youth Hostel and take an early shower. At 6 am I was already on
the Internet, recording my first impressions of this exciting
city and by 6:30 am I had left the hostel. It was still pretty
dark outside and the sun was just slowly starting to come up.
I walked through the quiet Lincoln Park neighbourhood all the
way to the Lake Michigan Shoreline where the cool wind was just
howling off the lake. Joggers, bicyclists and power walkers were
already out in full force. I strolled around for about 15
minutes, but when the wind got too strong I decided to take a
bus and head south to a neighbourhood called "Old Town", near
North Street and N. Wells Street. It's a tidy, well-kept
neighbourhood of historic homes and the location of the Second
City Comedy Club, a place that has spawned so many comedic
talents.
After a brisk morning walk around Old Town I hopped back on the
el-train and went to check out downtown. I got off in the Loop
and headed out towards the openness of Michigan Avenue and Grant
Park. Interestingly the wind in between the buildings in the
Loop was much stronger than in the open areas just off the Lake
Michigan Shoreline.
Michigan Avenue and Grant Park are one of the areas where
Chicago's beauty is most striking. Daniel Burnham's city plan of
1909 that preserved a huge amount of green space right on the
shoreline of Lake Michigan was a brilliant decision, and
visitors and local residents alike benefit from the huge green
zone between the Loop and the lake. Grant Park's beginnings
actually date all the way back to 1835, when foresighted
citizens, fearing commercial lakefront development, lobbied to
protect the open space. Burnham's vision of the park as a formal
landscape with museums and civic buildings became reality: today
Grant Park holds 3 of the city's most distinguished museums: The
Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the
Adler Planterium.
The Buckingham Fountain is the centerpiece of Grant Park, the
city's grand "front yard," and it is set within a handsomely
landscaped garden, one of the city's finest examples of a
Beaux-Arts-style landscape design. It is an exact replica of the
fountain in Versailles, just twice as large, and with those
measurements it is one of the largest free-standing fountains in
the world.
At the north end of Grant Park is Millenium Park, at an
investment of $495 million Chicago's most ambitious public
undertaking. Unsightly railroad tracks and parking lots were
turned into a multi-media outdoor entertainment area during the
last few years. Among Millennium Park's prominent features are
the Frank Gehry-designed Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the most
sophisticated outdoor concert venue of its kind in the United
States; a winding mirror clad bridge over Stetson Street,
designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry; and "Cloud
Gate" ("The Bean"), a hugely popular sculpture inspired by
liquid mercury, designed by British artist Anish Kapoor. On this
beautiful sunny morning, the reflections of the city's
skyscrapers had an almost surreal feel to them.
I still had about an hour and a half before my friend Linda
would arrive at the Randolph Street Station, so I decided to
head north on Michigan Avenue towards two of my favourite
buildings: the Wrigley Building and the Chicago Tribune Tower.
The Wrigley building serves as the headquarters of the Wrigley
(chewing gum) company and was built in 1920 by the company's
founder, William Wrigley Jr. It was the first of a series of
landmarks at the southern end of the Magnificent Mile.
The design of the Tribune Tower was the result of an
international competition for "the most beautiful office
building in the world," held in 1922 by the Chicago Tribune
newspaper. The various competition entries proved extremely
influential for the development of skyscraper architecture in
the 1920s.
The winning entry, with a crowning tower with flying
buttresses, is derived from the design of the French cathedral
of Rouen and gives the building its striking silhouette.
The area around the Michigan Avenue Bridge and Esplanade looking
westwards along the Chicago River is an absolute mecca for an
architecture buff like me. You'll find a mixture of classic
skyscrapers, many of them built in Art Deco Style, as well as
more modern skyscrapers built over the last 30 years. This has
to be one of the most impressive urban vistas in existence
anywhere.
I continued to walk west on Wacker Drive and walked past a
number of the north-south streets that connect the Loop with the
areas north of downtown. I wanted to capture another fascinating
building: Merchandise Mart, an impressive building at the north
bank of the Chicago river between Wells and Orleans street, was
built in 1931. At that time, when it was constructed by Marshall
Field and Company to replace H.H. Ricardson's Marshall Field
Wholesale store, it was the building with the largest floor area
in the world and today it is the second largest building in the
United States after the Pentagon.
A short hop on the el-train later I got off at Randolph Street
to pick up my friend Linda who was scheduled to arrive at 10:25
am on the South Shore Railway Line. We have known each other
since we are 10 years old (almost 30 years!) and grew up in
Austria, and Linda herself moved to the United States a few
years ago. We hadn't seen each other for 2 years and this was
the time to reconnect.
Linda arrived a few minutes late and after a heart-felt greeting
we headed off to the Chicago Cultural Center to try to pick up a
3-day transit pass. Much to our surprise we were told that the
closest location for multi-day transit passes was the Marriot
Hotel at 549 North Michigan Avenue, about 20 minutes walking
north of where we were. We were a bit surprised that it would be
so inconvenient for visitors arriving in the Loop to purchase
transit passes, but off we went with Linda's suitcase in tow and
we were finally able to pick up our coveted 3-day transit pass
at the 2nd floor gift shop of the Marriot Hotel.
We decided to get rid of Linda's luggage and headed north
towards the youth hostel on the bus. By that time it was about
noon and we were both voraciously hungry. So we plunked
ourselves down at a cozy spot called the "Pasta Bowl" on Clark
Street and I had a really delicious gorgonzola pasta that I
absolutely devoured.
From there we went back to the Arlington House, dropped off
Linda's luggage and rested for a bit since we were both pretty
tired after this hefty lunch. At 4 pm we got going again and
headed down to the Golden Mile, Chicago's main shopping area
along Michigan Avenue, north of the Chicago River. The place was
absolutely hopping with people. We picked up a little gift for
Linda's daughter at H&M and then headed up into the John Hancock
Centre, Chicago's third highest building.
The view from the John Hancock Centre was amazing and the sun
was just getting ready to set. Chicago's skyline is impressive,
crowned as it is by the Sears Tower. After our high altitude
excursion we strolled along Michigan Avenue and for dinner we
headed back into the Lincoln Park area where we had a very
filling Mexican vegetarian burrito dinner on Lincoln Avenue.
Exhausted from all this exploring and eating, we went back to
the Arlington House to crash in our bunk bed...
About the author:
Susanne Pacher is the publisher of
http://www.travelandtransitions.com. It deals with travel to
foreign countries and is chock full of advice, tips, real life
travel experiences, interviews with travellers, insights,
cross-cultural issues, and many other features. Participate in
our travel story contest
http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm and win great
prizes, a fabulous cruise to the Amazon. Life is a Journey -
Explore New Horizons.
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