A full day in Down town Chicago.
Day 6 The day started with a fruit and milk breakfast and a browse on Warmshowers.org to find a possible staying place for my impending trip to Oregon on Wednesday. I sent out a few requests and left it a while with hope that an offer would come through. I borrowed Cindy’s metro card which allowed pre paid use of the Chicago Transit System and headed off into the windy city. First point of call was the nearest Starbucks, I’m loving this free WiFi. One nice coffee and a browse through the room request replies put me in an even better mood as I had been offered a bed for when I arrived in Portland. I noticed that the hop on hop off bus tour were also available in Chicago so after the good experience of NY I decided to use them again. In the package was a trip up to the sky deck of the Willis building, formally the Sears Tower and a recent tallest building in the world, bonus. The trip around the city was good with plenty of nice sights and the tour guide was quite funny. She really loved saying Chhiiccaaaaaaaggooooo. We arrived at the tower I got in the queue for the “elevator”...not the lift and had my 1st experience of seeing Amish people. They are quite a strange group from their appearances but they seemed happy enough although they did have strange beards and that’s just the women. The sky deck is something else, standing on a pane of glass 1,353 feet above the street gives you a bit of a rush and the stepping out part is so freaky. When you look down your balance goes all crazy as it just doesn’t feel right.
The next stop was the Chicago Institute of Art to see a favourite painting of mine, Van Goughs The bedroom. While I was there I also saw Picasso’s famous Red Armchair and the painting A Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte by George Seurat. I stopped and looked at the Salvador Dali painting they had but I felt like I had taken acid after about 30 seconds, not sure what they put in the water in Spain but Salvador must have drunk to much of it. All in all a great afternoon and a bit of culture never did any harm.
The final part of the day took me around Chicago's financial district and the famous Red Flamingo sculpture featured in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
I know it's an abstract sculpture but surely if it's called a Flamingo is should partially resemble one.
Still I'm proud of the Willenhall Clock with it's Troll inside so you can't knock the Chicago locals for being proud of their Flamingo.