Ferris wheels, art and blisters

To start with a few pictures from the hostel (common room and bedroom). I'm in a six-bed bedroom which is pretty big. One of my room mates likes to go to bed really early (seven or so, not kidding), so I try to avoid the bedroom as much as possible at night. I slept quite well, given the fact that the bed is very soft and my back has been in better shapes.

Today I had (free!) breakfast at the hostel and because breakfast is between seven and nine pm, I was ready to go quite early. I left the hostel with the intention to visit the Chicago Cultural Center (because this was about the only attraction opening that early), but I ended up making a long walk. I took the BP Bridge (designed by Frank Gehry, which wouldn't look bad next to the Bilbao Guggenheim) to walk to Lake Michigan. I followed the lake shore until Navy Pier, where I made a ride in a big Ferris wheel (sponsored by McDonalds). Great views, and together with two other early birds I was the only passenger!

From Navy Pier I walked back to The Loop area to visit the Art Institute of Chicago, which was very nice. Unfortunately, the museum was in the middle of major construction, so many pieces of art were not on display and some wings were closed altogether. But, enough remained to be seen and I really enjoyed walking through the museum at my own pace (no offence Eise!). I particularly liked the design pieces and contemporary American paintings. One exposition was especially impressive. It was an exposition of photomontages by Martha Rosler, who combined images of the Vietnam war with images from American home interiors of the 50's and 60's. Quite surprising and shocking (see one of the pictures in the photo below,). The museum had a great museum shop, with interesting goodies (no crap) and lots of books. I bought a book about the use of patterns in design.


After dropping of the book in the hostel, I went on an Icebreaker quest. I took the subway to Lincoln Park, to an outdoor shop selling Icebreaker (according to the Icebreaker website). Conveniently, the shop was located next to a huge Whole Foods, a (mostly) organic supermarket (think Gimsel, but then 50 times bigger). Lovely. I composed a good lunch which I ate at the terrace (see photo).Sadly, no Icebreaker stuff in the outdoor store, so I continued my quest in other outdoor stores which I looked up before- hand. No luck yet, so I'll have to keep on searching.

In the end, I spent most of my afternoon in Lincoln Park, which turned out to be a really nice area of Chicago. I loved being out of busy downtown in a more residential part of the city, with little shops, choice to drink coffee at another place than Starbucks, and so on). Later in the afternoon I quickly walked down Magnificient Mile, the main shopping street in Chicago where all big chain stores are located (apart from the Apple Store, nothing special). I had dinner in a typical American (?) pizza place. Having dinner on your own here in the US is not very bad actually. Mostly, they seat you at the bar, with all the other lonely soles, which easily results in funny conversations (either with the bar tenders or with other guests - today I set next to a guy from working in the business of surgical technologies ).

Now it's time to bother my (probably vast asleep) room mate. I'll be back tomorrow!