Chicago Roadtrip

Finally here they are. The pictures from the Museum of Science & Industry. Enjoy!

Hey I’m back on the road again. The journey to home has officially begun. I thought I’ll sleep a bit longer, but woke up at 8am. I lounged half asleep in bed a bit longer than I should have. Eventually I got up and got myself ready. Then the fun of packing started. My suitcase was in serious distress. All this digging around looking for clothes made it look like a tornado went through. Everything had to come out and get repackaged. I don’t know it seems like it’s fuller than before. Had to open it’s widening belt. :-) Did I mention that it weighs a ton? Why is mine always the heaviest? Oh well the car doesn’t complain about it’s weight so it doesn’t matter. I’m the one who has to lift it up a mile though to get it into the back of the car. Fun! :-)

First stop was to get gas. It’s really interesting as soon as you are in a city where lots of people live, people are no longer honest. At the gas pump they ask you to enter your 5 digit billing zip code for your credit card. All the small towns I went through on my way to Chicago, none asked for that. Swipe your card and you are ready to pump gas.

After that you can guess where I had to go. Yes of course Starbucks! Got my usual morning drink except this time I got a comment about 8 pumps of vanilla in the grande version. Wow that is really sweet. I don’t know why, but I think it’s perfect. I need sugar and I can’t drink some unsweetened beverage. :-) You should see how much sugar I put in if I drink like a hot tea. LOL I also got a power protein plate like I did when the roadtrip began in CA. I love those things. This one had the original peanut butter package. You could actually pour it. But it’s not the healthy one they give you in CA. I wonder why they serve the new special healthy one in CA? I don’t think I need to explain. :-)

I have to say: Thank you so much Chicago. You provided an absolutely amazing experience and fun time. It could not have been any better. I really appreciate it. Definately have to go back there some day as there is so much more to see and I want to see the rest of the museums where I only saw a fraction of it.

I know everyone has been anxious to know more about my day at the museum. If you had nightmares or couldn’t sleep. I’m truly sorry. :) One thing I can tell for sure things didn’t come to live after nightfall. LOL. (If you don’t get the joke, watch the movie Night at the Museum).

Arrive at the museum and this thing is another monster. I somewhat expected it, because the website says it’s the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere. The guy at the ticket counter said it’s 14 acres. That’s I believe only the building. But I’d have to check up on that fact as I didn’t verify it. Again on three levels. It was 11am and I went into the coffee shop inside the museum. Apart from the coffee I also got some fruit. First meal of the day. At 11:40am I had tickets to see the movie Hubble. First I went to check out the old race cars. Basically had to run through. Then I had to rush back to the movie theater. Made it into the right building, they were already announcing last call for the show. The theater is IMAX, but it’s a bit different. It feels like you are laying in your seat.  You couldn’t look down as it felt like you are going to fall down. I don’t have to tell you about the movie, it was superb! The official website is at http://imax.com/hubble. There is also a YouTube Trailer. The trailer falsely portrays that the movie is mostly about astronauts and the Hubble. But it’s about so much more.

Ok after the movie I couldn’t really talk as I was really moved and wowed. Looked around in the space exhibit (it’s right where the theater is). Couldn’t look at everything. It was very interesting. Then I had to go find the U-505 submarine exhibit. I had tickets to get a tour of the inside of the U-505. It’s the real submarine the US captured from the Germans during WWII. I was going to step into a piece of history. I have never been on a submarine so I knew it was going to be very interesting. The story about the submarine is like the U-579 Hollywood movie, but Hollywood made it much more dramatic than what happened in real life. Seeing it from the outside was really quite something. Then we went inside. The group was small around 20 people. 59 men lived on that submarine. They had two bathrooms, but the 2nd one was all filled up with food so they had to really eat themselves through to have a 2nd bathroom. They never showered (you can’t). That for 90 days. Can you imagine 59 guys and no shower for 90 days? They must have smelled like roses. :-) I tell you it is really tight and small in there. You really had to be careful you didn’t bump your head somewhere. What I really liked I could read everything. Everything was labeled in German (Surprise, it’s a German submarine ha ha ha). I even became the translator as they played some tapes on how they got the torpedoes ready. The entire conversation was in German. The tour guide asked if someone spoke German and obviously it was only me. That was kinda embarrassing. After that you walked to the control room. Past the kitchen which was so tiny. 59 people had to be fed, 3 times a day. Amazing. The control room was interesting. Lots of stories. After that you went past the diesel engines. They played recordings on how only one (they had two) sounded on idle. It was loud. Imagine trying to sleep in that submarine. You could hear/feel the noise everywhere. That was pretty much all of it. I totally loved the tour. There were so many more items to see at that exhibit.

After that I had to rush back to the theater and watch at 2:10pm the Ultimate Wave movie. Nothing to report there. There was no need to see it. I thought it was a bit boring. Then I headed to the YOU exhibit. I wasn’t impressed with the giant 3D heart which is supposed to beat to your heartbeat. I didn’t really work very well. The two things I thought were the best was the display for Happiness. I could identify myself with that. The other thing was the display of the growth of a human. From embryo to fetus. They were all real. It started at 28 days and ended at 37 weeks and 5 weeks. That was incredible. At 28 days it was so tiny. But it didn’t take very long and the fetus was still extremely small, but you had no problems making out the fingers and toes. The full-grown baby at 37 weeks was huge, compared to where it started off. It seemed like kids which were there really enjoyed that a lot. Parents were explaining to them that’s how you looked at one point.

I went over to the airplanes, but I had only 5 minutes left, before they kicked everybody out at 4pm. I can’t believe it, but it’s impossible to see everything in one day. There were so many things I completely missed. Yes I only saw a fraction of the museum.

Finally made it outside of the museum and I realized I’m really starving. The fruits were gone by then. :-) Eric wanted to see “The Bean” at Millennium Park. He was stunned. I tell you it’s completely different if you see it with your own eyes. Then it was time to look for a place to have dinner. Walked all the way to Magnificent Mile. Didn’t find anything and then I remembered that with Kisha the other day I walked by a Ralph Lauren restaurant (yeah there is restaurant too :-) I knew I looked at the food walking by and I thought it looked good. Found it and as it was rather early the restaurant was pretty empty. The service was excellent. The waiter was like a walking history book. He knew so much about Chicago. I had a split plate. Tagliatelle with lobster and a tomato sauce and jumbo scallops with a tomato-cucumber salad. That salad was really good! At the end the waiter gave each of us his Ralph Lauren business card. I have never gotten a business card from a waiter. I don’t know if it’s something usual to do in a Ralph Lauren restaurant or who knows why he gave it away. Never knew that a Ralph Lauren restaurant existed. :-)

Then it was back to the hotel and work was a mad house. I don’t know why, but there was so much stuff to do.

Today it’s time to leave Chicago and head on back home. I’m not planning to leave way early in the morning. My plan is to go back to Ankeny, IA. From there I’ll look for a little bit different route to make it back to CA. You don’t have to go back the same way you came.

That’s it for that story. Hope it was fun to read. I sure had an excellent day filled with lots of amazing surprises and experiences. Pictures will be made available some other time.

Back at the hotel. Wow that science museum is grand! They sure know how to build museums in Chicago. Only saw a fraction of the museum. I was moved by the Hubble movie. You have to see it yourself on this gigantic dome shaped screen. Here is something they believe there are at least a 100 billion galaxies out there each with billions of stars. Some galaxies cluster like cities together in large numbers. Our Milky Way galaxy is part of cluster of galaxies. But it’s a very small cluster compared to other larger clusters of galaxies. Remember each one contains billions of stars. Also I believe I have to check on that I really liked the Orion Nebulus pictures from Hubble. Today I find out they believe it’s a nursery where new stars and solar systems are born. No wonder I was so fascinated by those pictures. Our solar system might come from there too. It’s absolutely fascinating and stunning. So many other things. Already had dinner. I only had some fruits all day long. After the museum I was about to drop dead. I was starving. Ok now back to do some work. Hopefully I can write more about my day later.

Ok here is a quick recap of Saturday as well as pictures from that day. There are quite a few. I had to delete over half of them. I took way too many.

Instead of taking the cab we decided to try out the train system in Chicago. I love trains. It’s always fun trying to figure out where to go and what trains you should use etc to get where you want to go. Especially in a place where you have never been before. Of course you get to see all kinds of interesting characters, too. :)

We start to see all kinds of people dressed up in red and white clothes. Many had flags with them which said: Polska. That means Poland. We thought what’s going on? So I searched on Google and found out that Chicago is throwing a parade for me. Ha ha ha.  Just kidding. No it was the Chicago Polish Constitution Day Parade. They almost wanted to cancel it due to the Polish President/Wife and his entourage killed in a plane crash on April 10th. So we watched the parade for a little while.

The plan was to go into the Aquarium first. The line to buy tickets was pretty long so we decided let’s go over to the Field Museum and get tickets there. You can also buy tickets for the Aquarium there. I figured if the line is shorter there, it’ll be easier to get in there later into the Aquarium as I already have tickets for it. Of course the line was a lot shorter at the Field Museum. Wow this Museum is gigantic. It has three levels. I think you could easily spend 2 weeks in there, if you want to read and study every exhibit which is there. The material and collections they have is unbelievable. We went to see the Mammoth Special Exhibit first. There was a great time lapse at the beginning. It started off with how things looked 1 day ago and then 2 days ago and then it got faster and faster. 100 years ago. The spot you stood on in Chicago really never changed. The whole scenery transformed completely though as the years passed by. It stopped once you hit 20,000 years ago.  After that exhibit we had lunch. Then we went to check out the bugs world. It was fantastic. They tried to make you believe they are going to shrink you. Then you were inside the soil. The roots of plants were enormously big. They also had descriptions of what root belongs to which plant. You know all kinds of things. After that we checked out the DNA exhibit. Incredible stuff. After that we went through the Evolving Planet exhibit. It starts off at 4 billion years ago and goes to now. Wow this exhibit goes on and on and on forever. I think we spend an hour in there and we went pretty fast through as we didn’t have any time. You could easily spend an entire day just at that exhibit. So many things you can learn/read look at. It was really well done.

Then we went to the Aquarium. The line was even longer this time. I took a picture. It was a slow moving line. I would not be surprised if the people at the end of the line had to wait 2 hours to buy tickets. Everyone has questions about the tickets as there are so many options. We got in pretty quick as we could use the will call line which was very short. Smart move to get tickets somewhere else. :) The Aquarium is really cool. So many interesting creatures to look at. I don’t think I have ever seen such a variety. You could basically see marine life from every corner of the world. Probably my favorite part was watching the dolphins have fun. There was a huge window in the lower level which looked right into the pool where they perform a show. You could see exactly what it really looks like from underwater. There were two dolphins which always hang out with each other. They couldn’t let go of each other. It was so much fun to watch. But extremely hard to take pictures. I got a few of them. We stayed there until 6pm when they threw us out as they were closing at that time. I don’t think we saw everything.

After that we basically went to a Starbucks and had to sit down after walking around all day long. You all know the rest of the story what I did after Starbucks.

Enjoy the pictures. Most of them are from Saturday. The chocolate pictures are from Sunday. I didn’t really take any from the Magnificent Mile.

Today I’ll be checking out the The Museum of Science and Industry. I think I will have an amazing time there. I will have to start the day early. I found even more exhibits I want to check out. :-)

Well I don’t think I need to elaborate where I went for dinner tonight. I think everyone knows. If not, I went to Spacca Napoli again. Wow I love this place. I think it has the best pizza’s outside of Italy!

Guess what: The dough boy guy was there again. He recognized me. This time got some free high-end (according to him) Chianti. I don’t care what it is. I love the gesture. It’s incredible. I guess me telling him how fantastic the dough is, really made an impression.

Had pretty much the same stuff again except this time I had a Margarita Pizza and only the Antipasto. The rest of my menu plan stayed the same. Here are a couple pics to make your mouth water. :-) (Actually the pizzas look and taste much better than what the phone pictures show. The pizzas look like a dog shit on one of them and then they brought it out! LOL. Ohhhh I’m laughing so hard….

No dessert picture, that was gone before a picture could even be taken. (Didn’t want to bother you guys with cat poop :-) Ha ha ha.

Ok I’m in the middle of doing some work now. Going to the Magnificent Mile shopping area was good. For me not quite as much fun as going back in time or learning about things I didn’t know. But I didn’t get dragged into a shoe store. He He He. Actually I got a few cool things I liked for me for the summer. We also went into a Niketown store. This store was huge. It had three levels. It had one big problem. It was fricking hot in there. It was like a sauna. I don’t know if they turned up the heat so you could try out their shirts if they really stay dry in case you sweat a lot. Who knows. You could have run naked around in there and it would still have been hot. :-) Actually I think they had some issue with the A/C. Interestingly on the 3rd level (women section) it was cool. Only the men sections were hotter than blazes (Maybe because men are hotter ha ha ha). On the way back I walked by a chocolate store. Oh this store was so calling my name! They had so many different chocolates to choose from. It was an awesome place. Of course I couldn’t resist and get a few chocolates.

I have to say I enjoy shopping more with a guy. You don’t have to separate each other. And guy clothes just look cuter. Oh my now I’m in big trouble. Sorry! LOL

Ok that’s it for now. I have to continue working and finish all the stuff which has pilled up.

Ok it’s really late and I’m really tired. As I thought I wouldn’t be able to post any pictures today. I’m really very sorry for that.

Anyway a quick update before I go to sleep. At around 8:30pm we find the building. It’s amazing it’s the tallest building, but once you are walking around between all those highrises in the city, you can’t see it. So the elevator takes you up to the 103rd floor in a minute. During the time you go up, they show you on a flat screen the level you are on and what other landmarks are that high. Then you step out and go to the left and the only thing you can really say is: WOW! It was absolutely stunning to see that nightview of all the lights and the city. I took pictures, but they don’t even come close to that view. You can walk around and you get to see downtown. All the other skyscrapers are smaller as you are so high up. You have to see it with your own eyes to understand what I’m talking about.

The coolest thing though is they took 3 original windows out and built decks out of plexiglass or something like it. Those put you around 4 feet outside of the building. It’s completely see through so you get to see a complete straight-down view. I was watching people go out there and they were all scared. I thought to myself ok it can’t be that bad. I took the video camera and basically filmed myself as I stepped outside the building on the 103rd floor. I was looking through that small LCD screen and I didn’t think it was bad. Then I moved my eyes away from that screen and looked down and that’s when I felt it. Oh my! My knees felt like pudding. It’s a very strange feeling. You know you are safe, but it’s something you have never experienced as you usually can’t step outside of building and see the side of the building go down 103 floors (around 1,300+ feet or 400+ meters high). It’s like you are floating in the middle of the air. That’s something I definitely had to get used to. It was totally amazing. I really enjoyed it.

Then we walked to dinner and we decided to go to the Park Grill for dinner. We arrived like around 10pm there. They were seating people till 10:15pm. So we barely made it. Wow that dinner was so hilarious. I don’t know how it all happened, but I don’t recall the last time I laughed so much at dinner. Everyone I think had an incredible time and that’s all it matters. I didn’t get back to the hotel until around 12:30am.

Today’s plan is to go to the Magnificient Mile. It’s basically a shopping mile. Kisha and Daniel will have to leave today so I won’t have to spend too much time in the shopping mile. Hopefully she won’t drag me into a shoe store. Women and shoes. Oh no! :-)

I’m hoping I’ll be back at the hotel in the afternoon as I have some serious catch-up with work to do and I have some pictures to post to. Usually the 1st creates extra work. But I’m planning to go back to the Italian Restaurant I went to on the first night. Can’t leave the city without going there again. :-)

I still want to see the Museum of Science and Industry. Everything about it sounds like I will totally love. I want to see the Hubble and Ultimate Wave of Tahiti movies. The submarine also really interests me. The exhibit: YOU which is supposed to show the connection between mind, body and spirit.

I’m planning to leave Chicago on Tuesday.  Who knows what will happen after that. :-)