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Published: February 11th 2008
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Lake view in the East Garden
We couldn't leave you without some more Japan images After the great time we had in Japan (I’ll attach a few more images to start with- but I'm having trouble uploading photos from a 1770 house in Harrisonburg,Virginia! We may have to put them up when we are back in Washington) we moved on to Chicago with all the usual jet-lag and confusion that comes from changing time zones. In addition we struck the start of a cold spell in the mid north east of the country that brought rain, cold winds and some snow. The thermals and rain gear came out and the weather didn’t stop us exploring Chicago. What a fascinating city. It has completely renewed itself after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 which destroyed buildings in the centre of the city at the rate of 65 acres an hour. The reconstruction used leading architects who designed the first sky scapers of the 20th century.
The Architecture Tour we had booked for the first morning was one of the best tours I’ve ever done. We visited Louis Sullivans “1890’s structural iron frame buildings; Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1909 Robie House; Mies van der Rohe’s 1969 IBM skyscraper and his University of technology campus building all following his
Blossom mania
We saw magnificent blooms and then in Washington we saw lots more ( plus lots of sneezes!) dictum “less is more”. Then two fascinating new post modern structures the Graduate School Building at Hyde Park Centre and the Student Union building at the Uni of technology.
The Graduate School impressed us both as it linked visually the adjacent Gothic style Cathedral and the Robie House.
Chicago is flat so is great to walk …which we did in the rain and snow to the Art Institute where we saw Seurat’s ‘Afternoon on the Grande Jatte’ and an amazing collection of pivotal paintings from the Impressionists and early American! Went up the Hancok Tower and walked through Millenium Park.
We flew to St Loius and were met by our cousin Rick and his wife Pam . His mother (Lyn’s aunt) was a war bride who came to Missouri in 1946 and had six children. It was wonderful to see her and to meet some of the family in Marian, Illinois to talk about our families and our backgrounds. It was some relief 10 minutes into the drive from the airport to discover that Rick is a strong Democrat and wanted to talk about all the things we had put on our list of banned items. It was
great fun and John we found a new “brother” for the cause!
Rick took us exploring and we stood at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers where three states meet up (Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky). It is a rich agricultural area that grows corn, wheat and soy. They dropped us back at the airport and we continued our journey to Washington to see Phil.
Since arriving we’ve moved into our home exchange with Maryvonne and Doug. They run marathons and cycle so we go walking and swimming with them (Doug climbed Everest in his late 50’s). We’ve seen the most amazing Museum that we hadn’t even heard of before - the Hillwood Museum. It was Marjorie Post’s house and garden. It is Paris on the Potomac month in Washington so everything French is big here. We saw Modigliani at the Phillips and today spent hours wandering through the biggest Toulouse Lautrec exhibition imaginable.
Phil is well and we are enjoying his company. He hasn’t changed, just as laid back as always. The tree of us are off to the Shenandoah National Park this weekend and at the end of next week we are going to
Business school Chicago
This shows the impact of the Neo Gothic Cathedral Pennsylvania to see FL Wrights "Falling Waters"
and lots more. That will be the next edition.. hope you are all keeping up and enjoying the travels.
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