The Windy City Part I

Short trip to Chicago, IL.

The only one sad about it - our little Neon Noodle Niles:


Jim had a presentation in Chicago. We flew in on Thursday and were located downtown in a an awesome, fancy new hotel, the W City Center.

Hotel Lobby:


View onto the EL in the Loop from our hotel room:


After Jim had a meeting with some people from work, we walked to the Rock Bottom brew pub to get some food and some beer. Here are the pictures we took on the way:

We forgot what this skyscraper was - read somewhere that it is a bank and that they built it wider on the bottom because they needed more room for counters and stuff and built it thinner on the top so that more rooms would get a nice view:


The Rookery Lobby by Frank Lloyd Wright, just across from the hotel:


Chicago Board of Trade - an Art Deco Building with a statue of Ceres on top:


Chicago Theatre


Marina City - or also nicknamed Corncobs. This was meant to be a city in the city. The upper part contains apartments and offices, and the bottom part is a garage, stores, a pier and a bowling alley



Sculptures everywhere in Chicago. Here is the "Flamingo" by Alexander Calder


We crashed pretty early on Thursday. On Friday Jim had to work the whole day. Nat was on her own and went to an awesome breakfast at Lou Mitchells - a Chicago institution since 1921 with homemade bread. This place is supposed to have the best breakfast in the city...well maybe second best...the best was at Ariane and Lo ;-)

Afterwards Nat went to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was amazing, but slightly disappointing that the American Gothic wasn't there.

Here is a picture of one of Nat's favorite sculpture on the streets - as a miniature - by Pablo Picasso (there is a controversy if it shows a woman or a dog - you tell me. We think it's a dog!)


Here an interesting view from a back building of the Art Institute towards the back of the entrance of it. In between train tracks - huh???


In the afternoon Ariane and Lo picked us up. More on that later. Look out for Windy City: Part II!