Even more Chicago

Mags in the Millennium park.

On Tuesday we decided to take a little exercise and walk to the Planetarium, through Millennium Park, and along the lake the shore to the museum complex where there is the Field Museum, currently showing an exhibition of ancient Egyptian artefacts, the aquarium, and the planetarium.

We decided to try out the planetarium where we saw a show called time space which is an animated journey through space from big bang to a possible future in the year 3000. The screen covers the ceiling from the floor upwards giving a 360 view, and gives the effect of moving through space. The seats recline to near horizontal to provide a better view, and are all too comfortable. There’s a temptation to lean back, close your eyes, and catch 40 winks. We managed to resist, just, but one old chap to our left succumbed and was spark out after a few minutes and showed no sign of waking up even after the show finished. He’s probably still there.

In the evening we met up with Steve, Sandra, Rob and Mary Beth for dinner in a small restaurant called the Twin Anchors which specialises in ribs. We all had the ribs. Our only decision was which accompaniments to have. I copied Steve with the zesty sauce and zesty baked beans, nodding sagely as if I knew what zesty means. The meat was beautifully tender and just fell off the ribs. The beer flowed and we had a great time.

Yesterday, we headed off to “Second City”, a famous comedy club whose former players include Alan Alda, John Belushi, and Bill Murray. Our taxi journey over was a strange one. The driver was listening to a, only in America, right wing, religious radio show where a principal was describing why he had banned dancing at his school as it was too sexually suggestive. The driver asked us what the morality of teenagers was like in the UK (as if we’d know). We told him that it was desperate, evil place and under no circumstances should he visit. Anyway, at the theatre we saw a show called “War” which was brilliant – taking the piss out of American life generally, and of course the Iraq war, with special distain for Bush and Rumsfeld. Great stuff. We had a table to the front and left of the stage where our waitress kept bringing us drinks throughout the performance. Just fantastic. I’m not sure how we’re going to cope when we leave Chicago and have to start doing things for ourselves again.