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Published: June 19th 2010
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We started writing this blog at Chicago airport while we were waiting for our flight back to Cincy. Rob watched the first half of the England match there... On reflection it was probably good that we flew during the second half. Rubbish.
Our last 24 hours in Chicago were brilliant. We didn't leave the hotel until about 1pm on Thursday after a lazy morning watching the Disney channel. We went back to the Eleven City Diner for brunch before wandering round Grant and Millennium Parks for most of the afternoon.
It was really hot and sunny so we took it easy and stopped regularly for liquid refreshments - not beer for a change. Eventually we arrived at Millennium Park and had a couple of drinks in the bar and were treated to some free music by Raj band. They were a reggae/ska band who played a few Jimi Hendrix and Chilli Pepper covers. Rob was in his element!
Once they had finished we went on to the Art Institute of Chicago which is free after 5.00pm on Thursdays, it was fairly busy as the Hubbard Street Dance Company were doing various performances throughout the evening - at one
point they were getting the audience to mimic them, this was really funny as it involved random movements and making sounds... Karen thought she was going to get picked on. Three of the dancers did some movements in relation to a series of white paintings on the wall, it was good to see the two aspects of art interacting with each other... this led Rob to get all arty with the camera, so we now have loads of random photos.
After leaving the Institute we made our way back to Millennium Park to listen to more free music and have a beer, Thursday evenings throughout the summer are called 'Music without borders' so what we saw was an eclectic mix of music representing Islamic tradition with a contemporary edge. Before the music started we watched various prizes being awarded to film makers who had been producing films on the multicultural mix of those who live in Chicago. We then settled down and listened to Tinariwen - a band of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali! They were really good and very different to all that we had seen and heard up to that point. What
is striking about Chicago is the way in which they use 'public space' to bring the people of the city and its tourists together, other cities could learn from this.
Anyway after listening to all this music we were hungry so we decided to head to Giordano's, this is a pizza restaurant with a difference. They do pizza pie here, and it's something else, lots of crust, lots of cheese and lots of ingredients, we had a 'small' one to share and there was still some left. Afterwards we had a walk to the river to see the city by night and take a few more photos before heading back to the hotel for a rest.
We woke up feeling all hot and bothered as the air conditioning wasn't working and Rob caught the USA V Slovenia game while we packed our case and got ourselves sorted to return to Cincinnati, Chicago is a great city and we would love to come back one day and check it out some more. But as for now we are in our 'base camp' for the weekend.
Thanks for all your messages and comments by the way 😊
TTFN
R&K xxxxxxxx
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John Morley
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Thanks for Blog
See you soon . Hope England are still in by the time you get back. Have Hope for Wednesday's game.