Blogs from Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America - page 78

Chicago has the tallest building in North America -- the Sears Tower. Again I say, North America. Others might argue that it's CN Tower. But, again, we are talking about buildings here. CN Tower is a "free-standing structure", not necessarily an inhabited building. (I wrote about CN Tower here: ) Also, at a world-wide perspective, there are a few more taller structures than the Sears Tower. As of this writing, there's one in Dubai that is under construction -- about to surpass the current tallest skyscraper. Google gave me too many results to qualify (or disqualify) my statement, but I'm happy enough to have seen the tallest inhabited building in North America. I've gotten inside it several times before -- to meet some people for work, and to send my mail. Yeah, there's a ... read more

It was the night before take-off and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a family who was leaving for an adventure of a lifetime. Believe it or not, the night prior to heading off we were in bed and sleeping by midnight AND we slept through the night. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep from the previous several nights or the exhaustion one experiences from being stressed out for several days or a combination of both. Whatever the reason it would turn out to be a good thing as sleep would soon become a precious commodity However, we were all up and ready to go first thing in the morning. Nana/Mom/Marie had a hardy breakfast ready for us and our lunch was packed. It was like the first day of ... read more

We just arrived at Chicago O'Hare airport. We are eating inside the airport at Chili's!! MMMMM!!!! :-) I flight doesn't leave for another 2 hours. As much as I hate flight, the plane ride from Des Moines was actually very fun! I am debating if I want to go outside of securty here at O'Hare to meet some of my friends that drove here to see me. I'm just afraid I won't make it back in on time! Oh well! We should arrive in Munich, Germany in approx. 11 hours, 9 hours after flight time. We will probably be very tired, as with the 7 hour difference, our bodies will feel like it is 3 am. Im hoping to get plenty of sleep on the overseas flight!!... read more

It was a good job that we didn't pick this day to go up any of the towers. The weather was awful and we couldn't see the top of the Sears and Hancock towers due to the clouds. We started the day by meeting up with some friends of ours who moved to America a few years ago. We then went to the John G Shedd Aquarium, Millennium Park, Grant Park and Navy Pier. The aquarium was massive and had tons to see, but I think I preferred the Aquarium of Western Australia (AQWA) in Perth with its glass tunnel (see ). There was a dolphin display, but the focus has moved from the more traditional acrobatics to conservation. Millennium Park was brilliant. The Bean particularly appealed to the kids. This is a massive reflective, urr, ... read more

The Sears tower had previously held the record for the highest building in the world, so we had to go to the top of that. To get to the top, you had no choice but to go on "the tour". First of all we had no choice but to sit down and watch a video about the tower as "it's part of the tour". It was actually quite an interesting video, but I'm still going to moan about it as I don't like being told that I have to do things. Next the queues were awful - not helped by the fact that we all came out from the video together, which meant that everyone simultaneously crowded to the lifts. Then, when we got to the top, it was seriously over crowded (there's a lot less ... read more