Wednesday in the Windy City

Another early start - off to see Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower and formerly the tallest building in the world.  It has an impressive title page, but since most of the building is used as office space, the tourist entrance is round the back.  Also note that it's on one of Chicago's main streets, called 'South Wacker Drive'.  See, you couldn't call a street that in Australia, because everyone would collapse into fits of giggles every time they mentioned it.  Obviously the Americans are more mature.

Upstairs, the view from the observation platform is terrific, although it was a bit overcast when I was up there.  You can see Millennium Park in the third picture.  I also got 'on the edge' style photos of myself, but I'll have to wait till I can find a scanner to upload those.

After that exhausting, 1-minute elevator ride to the top, I needed a hearty breakfast ;)  So I went to a good old-fashioned American diner.  I can't think for the life of me what it was called, but it was also on South Wacker Drive.  I had a delicious, greasy bacon and egg wrap and some more of America's finest most dreadful coffee.  The staff were hilarious, they loved the Australian accent and apparently I'm 'so cute'.  One of them even threatened to come and visit me lol.  The radio was also playing some great American music, like Chris Isaak and Tom Petty.  I left a good tip.

After refuelling, I headed up to the Art Institute of Chicago, which you'll recall from a previous post.  Apparently it's the second-largest museum of art in the US, after the Metropolitan in New York.  The collection was impressive and eclectic, and included furniture, like these two chairs.  The first is designed to allow the sitter to lean in to the conversation, and is so narrow that you can't help but be perched on the edge.  The second is made entirely from corrugated cardboard.

This was also really impressive; it looks flat in the first photo, but is actually three-dimensional, made of canvas stretched over wire.

And something else which was three dimensional:  this was called Woman in Tub, but you probably figured that out just from looking at it.

And because I'm a musical  nerd, I gasped as soon as I saw this - it's the painting of a candle which appears on the back cover of Sonic Youth's album Daydream Nation.  The front cover is a similar painting by the same artist, but alas, it wasn't on display.

There were (of course) some more traditional paintings, like van Gogh and Cezanne:

And the Andy Warhol appreciation train stopped again, with this one of Mao Zedong:

And the final highlight was this, painted in 1930 and meant to symbolise the insular 'old values' of America that were being rapidly swept away.  It's called American Gothic.

After that, I went for a walk to Navy Pier.  This is it in the distance.

It's actually a lot further away than it looks on the map, and it didn't help that I did a good deal of 'now it's there, and I'm here, but how do I get there?'  It's certainly not the most accessible attraction from the CBD, but on principle, I wasn't going to part with $45 to get the tourist bus.  Anyway, the walk did me good and I got to see some nice scenery along the way.

Anyway, I finally got there (and yes, they really do have school buses like this).

Was it worth the walk?  Well, it was good to see.  And if you had kids (or were the type of adult who enjoys riding ferris wheels and rollercoasters alone) it would be great.  But it had food, and that was the main thing.  I destroyed a few pieces of pizza in quick succession, then had my very first genuine Ben & Jerry's ice cream.  Also got more compliments about the accent ('Are you from New Zealand?').  People in these parts sure are much nicer than the New Yorkers :)