Chicago - Day 5

I had a very slow start to today as I didn’t wake up until 10:00 – don’t ask me why, I don’t know.

However, once showered and dressed I hit the streets and made straight for the Post Office!
I have great pleasure in announcing: “the postcards have been posted!” Good job I had my credit card with me, and thankfully the stamps were self adhesive.

After that I headed for Sears Tower, having purchased a reduced price ticket from the hostel. (Word of advice for anyone staying in hostels and wanting to visit local attractions, etc.: always check with the hostel front desk to see if they have discount tickets – they often do.) The trip takes off with a video presentation on how the tower was conceived and constructed. This was most interesting and in fact the Sears Tower still remains the tallest building in the USA. The observation deck is about four floors from the top, but still above every other building in Chicago, but one isn’t going to split hairs. The whole floor is devoted to seeing the sights and the only complaint I have is that some of the windows were a little dirty! (This is done rather tongue in cheek as I wouldn’t like to clean them, or even attempt it! Poo falling from that height could kill people!) As I was strolling around taking some photographs a lovely Japanese lady asked me if I would take her picture (she was on her own so not in “invasion mode”) to which I replied “Sure”. She was very pleased with the result and asked if I wanted her to take my picture. I wasn’t going to bother at first, but then I thought of Spank, so I let him out of my backpack. The result is shown above. I thanked the young lady and she was quite taken with Spank. Having let him out it was a bit of a struggle getting him back in as he kept leaping about everywhere. He seemed most taken with the height as he couldn’t remember ever being up a tree this high, or anywhere near this high, without some illegal loggers coming and cutting it down and thus making him homeless. He would have fared reasonably well on the streets of Chicago though as it appears the preferred method of begging is to shake a drinks cup at passers-by and not bother with any banter. I’m sure Spank could manage that. (Hmmm, evil thought on the making of money and the exploitation of animals is coming into my head... oh bugger it’s already been done – it is called a circus.)

Having departed the Sears Tower I thought I would head for the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) as it was offering free admission until the 14th in celebration of its 40th Anniversary.

I equipped myself with a Caribou Coffee (the best I have found in Chicago so far – still not better than Serous Coffee) headed for Michigan Avenue and as I approached it down Madison I saw ahead the Millennium Park so I thought I would check it out. Wow, what a wonderful park, and what a wonderful atmosphere it had to it – it just felt friendly as soon as I entered it. It is extremely well tended and contains this amazing structure (see photograph) on the AT&T Plaza. One can see the reflected skyline of Chicago in it from all angles and the whole thing just looks so pleasing – well it did to me and from some of the comments I heard from the people around it did to them too. I sat in the sun just soaking up the atmosphere whilst I finished my coffee and then had a closer look at this amazing “lozenge”. After looking around the park I decided I had better get a move on and see this museum, so I resumed my trek down Michigan Avenue.

The Museum of Contemporary Art is just up Chicago Avenue off of Michigan. I was also pleased to see the “Sympathy for the Devil” exhibition was still on and headed for that first. This is an exhibition which centres on the rock and roll influences of art – cue Andy Warhol – and has some really interesting and imaginative pieces. There was one piece I almost wept at as it consisted of a four by four metre floor area covered in vinyl records! I had to walk across them to continue round the gallery and it was painful for me to do so! (Plenty of other people had already done so, so the records were scratched to buggery – it was just sacrilege in my eyes.)
The rest of the museum contained some very interesting and thought provoking installations one of note was “The other Vietnam memorial” which consisted of twelve four metre high metal panels hinged like a big book copper anodised and containing a list of three million names representing all the Vietnamese innocents who died in that war. Seeing this representation of a disgusting waste of life certainly brought home the scale of the tragedy – I found it quite moving.

There was a load of crap in the museum as one might guess with it being “contemporary” – a stack of different coloured plastic builders’ buckets being one example – but also some very cleaver pieces, especially the wire structures by Alexander Calder (of the Flamingo sculpture fame) which look like simple mobiles until one views their shadows and the way they move on the wall – I was quite fascinated.

I curtailed my visit to the museum due to:- aching feet, extreme hunger and there only being half an hour to closing time.

I set off up the road and diverted off of Michigan as I knew there weren’t any restraints along it – only expensive hotels and shops selling designer rubbish. I found a lovely restaurant and satisfied my hunger before waddling back to the hostel.

I got myself a coffee and planned my assault on tomorrow – I think the Field Museum will get my attention. Having decided what I was going to be doing I headed for bed in order to rest my aching feet.