A Short Trip to Chicago

Mr. Trouble on Feet travelled to Chicago with me to take our host daughter back to meet her chaperone and group at the airport so she could travel back to Eastern Europe.  He has been saving up Christmas and birthday money, along with every other scrap of money he’s encountered through odd jobs here and there ever since YaYa went to Chicago with me last winter. He was determined to buy a plane ticket, and he made it!

He was a very happy little traveler.  His excitement on the airplane was quite the juxtaposition of our host daughter’s sadness about having to ride an airplane away from Duluth.  Our host daughter loves airplanes to, but she likes the ones headed TOWARD Duluth rather than away from us.  She kept saying sadly that she just wasn’t ready to go back yet.

In addition to enjoying the short airplane ride, Mr. TOF got to ride the train several times from the airport to downtown.  I always think riding the train is an interesting experience. There are so many people to watch, and the group of people in your train car each time is so random.  I’m always amazed at all the different languages you hear in Chicago wherever you go.

We visited the aquarium (and loved the dolphins, whales and sea lion).  We traveled to the top of the Willis Tower and the Hancock Building.  I like the view from the Hancock building best.  We visited the new exhibit at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.  It’s fantastic.  I learned so much there.  Mr. TOF loved drawing pictures of the sky scraper models and so did our host daughter, who sometimes has trouble feeling comfortable enough to try drawing things.  In fact, she happily drew pictures of five different skyscrapers. We had a snack at the Nutella cafe, viewed the “Bean,” and ate the most amazing Chicago style pizza in the universe at the same restaurant The Banana and I discovered last summer.  Mr. TOF and I also spent a day at the planetarium, which I had never been to, and concluded that it might be truly the best designed museum I have ever experienced.  I learned a lot there too, and it was set up so well to accommodate people of EVERY age.

Chicago is an exciting place to visit, but as Mr. TOF said so accurately, “Three days is the perfect amount of time for Chicago.  I like it, but I’d never want to live here.”  We were also happy to get back home where people embrace the cold and the outdoors.