Chicago
By Andrew Mortimer, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada
Having never been to the USA before, I was glad when my friend suggested that we visit Chicago in mid-March, as at that point our exams wouldn’t have begun yet. After a bit of itinerary planning, admin, and an extremely empty and early 90-minute plane ride, we arrived (very tired) on the Friday morning. After leaving our stuff at the hostel, we headed downtown to a diner for a great lunch before wandering around ‘the Loop’ and checking out the Chicago River, which had been dyed green for St Patrick’s Day the week before, an iconic tradition there. Once we explored the city, we went to a packed Irish bar, but still with the aim to get up early for our upcoming busy days.
When we arrived at The Art Institute of Chicago on the Saturday morning, having got past the two 2,300kg lion sculptures guarding the building, we decided to work our way up from the basement. We could’ve spent the whole day there, though. The Thorne Miniature Rooms were especially unbelievable and meant that by the time we got upstairs to the iconic art of Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Seurat and many others, we had already got our money’s worth. I would recommend being fairly quick as you make your way through the museum, as the opening hours are short enough that you will miss whole sections if you aren’t careful.
That evening we went to a comedy club after going to Target for food to cook dinner at the hostel. Getting to the club meant that we got to ride the ‘L’ train, which had rattled directly outside our 2nd-floor window at breakfast, and that we had left the middle of Chicago for the first time. The next morning, when we wandered back to the nearby Art Institute to visit the gift shop we had run out of time to see the day before, we were able to see the 8k Irish-themed ‘Shamrock Shuffle’ run go past. Inspired by this, we tried the famous Chicago hotdog and went to Cheesecake Factory, both of which were great. In between those treats, however, we got a beautiful view of the city from the North Avenue Beach Pier. That evening we also enjoyed going to a jazz bar, which had some very talented musicians and made us feel very sophisticated.
Our next morning was our last, and we decided to leave the city centre again and head south to visit a small suburb which, at different points in time, had been home to the Obamas and Muhammad Ali. We then finally tried a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza and went to the Chicago Cultural Centre, which had a stunning (free) room worth visiting. Once we had collected our stuff from the hostel (HI Chicago), we headed back to the airport and back to Toronto, where we could easily sort out our finances from the trip having used Splitwise. I would really recommend visiting Chicago at some point in the future, but maybe in 4 years.
