Worms, fireflies and temples

Yesterday was a lovely day, a fun day at the lab where I got to do some hands on stuff with the worms (C.elegans) that they use as model systems for their experiments (I used to use cells, which can be ok, but nowhere near as half as cool as the fluorescent worms!). While I don't want to return to the lab full time, it was nice to do something other than work at a desk. I was really happy that earlier in the week I had been invited to join one of my Kellogg coursemates and her friends and family for dinner last night. It was such a lovely evening, great food and friendly company.  We even got to see fireflies! One of the things I really like about the US is the overwhelming hospitality and friendliness here.

Today, I decided to get out of Evanston and go four stops north on the purple line to the end of the line to Linden. My destination was the Baha'i Temple. I came across it when looking for things to do and see in the nearby area and it looked pretty impressive. Today was warm, one of those hazy, lightly clouded days which is not quite beach weather - my original plan for today.

It felt a bit weird going out exploring by myself. The last few weekends I have had plenty of company and things to do, but it's time to get out of my comfort zone and reliance on having others to spend time with. The area I ended up in was beautiful, very suburban with some stunning houses. The Baha'i Temple in Evanston is the oldest surviving Baha'i House of Worship in the world and one of only seven such Temples worldwide. I had never heard of the Baha'i religion before, however at least what I read of it, it seems to be one of the more amenable religions of the world. While I am not at all religious myself, I like the fact that their belief is based upon acceptance of other religions and full equality. This is reflected in their temple here in Evanston, with symbolism from the main religions in the world engraved into the pillars surrounding the temple.

It was so nice here and lacking in the sobriety that usually surrounds other places of religious worship. I just sat on the lawn for a while enjoying the warmth, before exploring the large park and beach area nearby.

On returning the Evanston, I discovered that many shops were having street sales, and I found the local second hand bookstore was selling used books for 99cents which I took advantage of! Can't remember the last time I picked up 5 books for €3.75!

My peaceful day was marred slightly by the numerous charity workers accosting people in Evanston. This one charity had at least three people on every street corner asking for $20 for underprivileged youths in the area to get an education. I generally don't mind people asking for money, they usually won't get it from me but they are welcome to ask, nicely. I understand there is a massive rift in society here between rich and poor, and that while I am by no means rich I am not at the bottom of the scale. But, it really annoys me when they can't recognise a 'hard no' and then get aggressive when I walk off. It's not a huge amount they were asking for, but I get solicited for money several times, every single day in Evanston. I also don't want to give cash on the street to a charity I have never heard of, who is soliciting so aggressively, no matter how noble the cause. If I want to support something, by all means give me a flyer and I'll think about it, but don't get in my face if I don't want to give you cash upfront.

The perils of Amtrak, and fun in Lincoln Park

For any poor soul who decides to travel by train on the Lakeshore Limited from the East Coast to Chicago, don't. Well not unless you like to be stuck on the train for 4.5 hours more than you bargained for. And so that's how my last weekend started... a text at 6:46 am from my friend who was stuck on that train saying the train was late by 2.5 hrs, which over the course of the morning turned into 4.5 hours late. That would be ok, if he wasn't spending only one night here!

Since I had time to kill, I decided to take the Metra downtown, instead of the 'L' (the metro lines), just to see what it was like. The Metra is the local railway. Far fewer stops than the regular 'L', $2 more expensive (which at $4.25 is practically the same price as a bus ticket in Turku). But, it got me right to the part of town that I need to be, in about a third of the time. Like all things in the US, the trains are big. The seats are pretty nice, if you get one on the way down to town. The thing that amused me the most is the fact that the carriages resemble cattle cars with the split upper level. I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves.

Finally, after getting downtown late and braving Michigan Avenue (Chicago's answer to Oxford St/5th Avenue) to run an errand, I finally met my friend at Union Station. A much needed beer was had at the bar in the station and then we headed on out. I had arrived to the station via the Loop. The Loop is pretty much what it says on the tin. It is a loop around central downtown Chicago. Unlike London or New York central subways, the Loop is an overground metro line and the stations remind me of the rickety wooden roller coaster ride at Linnanmäki. However, being overground gives you a fantastic view of the skyscrapers. I din't really want to take the Loop back into town with my friend, I wanted him to see Chicago from the water instead. Considering the short amount of time we had, we took a water taxi so we didn't have to shell out $40 and spend 90 precious minuteon the tour boat.

After the hellish train ride, I decided to honour my friend's request of hunting down some Chicago style pizza at Lou Malnati's. OMG, the pizza was massive, the crust was so good and buttery. The thing with Chicago style, is it isn't just about the crust. It is almost an inside-out pizza, the cheese is on the bottom and the tomato sauce and other toppings are on the top. It is so incredibly filling that we took half the pizza home with us. We got the train home, freshened up and headed back downtown to check out the Lincoln Park neighbourhood.

A medium pizza was far too much for two people

The Lincoln Park neighbourhood is supposed to be one of the nicer, more trendy areas. After getting our bearings, we found some really lovely pubs and craft beer along N. Lincoln Ave. First stop was Lincoln Station - great pub, with a fantastic beer selection. We both fell in love with the Akari Shogun. We worked our way up a few of the bars, before settling down at this cute place, with mismatched furniture and a friendly crowd. The beer was chased by some lovely bourbons, including the Bulleit Bourbon.

The following day was pretty chilled. After wandering round Evanston and the Northwestern Campus, and getting a Chicago style hot dog, we chilled out in Millennium Park, which is a beautiful place to get away from the hubbub of the city. There was all sorts of music playing in the free concert area, mosly radio hits and we heard a live band. We even got to see the "Bean"! Perfect place for hangover chilling.

The meadow garden in Millennium Park

The "Bean"

Goodbye's were said and I headed home. Only to get a text saying that my friend was on a 4 hour bus ride to Toledo, Ohio because the train back to the East Coast was there instead of in Chicago... Gotta love Amtrak. Not looking forward to the train ride to St. Louis next week!

Downtown Chicago - tourist style

Last week I had the pleasure of a brief visit from a friend and took the opportunity to finally head to downtown Chicago. Some of you might be wondering what the hell I have been doing all this time and why I haven't been before. Well, there's a couple of reasons. Walking round a city sightseeing by yourself sucks. Yes, it's exciting to see a new place but it's much more fun to do it with company. I knew my friend was coming over so I decided it would be more fun to wait for her arrival and spend the day sightseeing together. The other reason is that I have been warned by many that the metro is not exactly the safest place, and I am acutely aware that as a young(ish), lone female, I make a pretty easy target (I can also be pretty damn naive sometimes, as close friends and family will attest).

I'm not sure why I have been more wary of exploring downtown Chicago by myself than other places. I've been all over the place to quite a few cities on my own, London, New York, Boston, and Amsterdam, to name a few. I think it maybe perhaps because the presence of guns seems to be more ubiquitous here. All around the University there are "No guns" signs on the building doors, and it's the same in many shops. I don't remember seeing that in Boston or New York. In addition, Chicago seems to have quite a high rate of gun crime. The 4th July weekend saw 11 deaths and over 60 wounded in shootings.

So, with a slight hangover after my 4th July celebrations, I headed downtown to The Loop to meet my friend. First stop was to head to Michigan Avenue a.k.a The Magnificent Mile. I'll explain why it is called that later. Our destination was the river front to get tickets to go on a River Boat Architecture Cruise. I'm not one for museums, usually eschewing them in favour of wandering round a city and exploring the neighbourhoods. However, I had been recommended by several people to go on this boat cruise. There are several available by different operators, however we took the one offered by the Chicago Architectural Foundation. It was a really good decision. The guy we had was so knowledgeable and the stories he was telling about how modern Chicago came to be were really interesting. Taking a boat cruise along the two arms of the river gives a completely different perspective on Chicago to seeing it from the side walk. At least for me, I got an appreciation for how this city came to be. While 40 bucks might seem a bit steep, I think it was well worth it. There are other tour operators, but I got the impression that their passengers weren't getting as richly told stories as we were.

The beauty of the River Boat Architecture Cruise is the fact that you get to see much better how the buildings reflect their environment

I knew jobs like this existed. But it's something else seeing someone actually doing it

Lunch was next on the cards. The advantage of having a US phone contract is the fact that you don't have to rely on wifi. A quick check of tripadvisor gave me a couple of options for decent places to try in the vicinity. I love tripadvisor for restaurant recommendations.  We used it in Croatia to plan all our meals out and it worked brilliantly. The only rubbish meal we had out there was the only time we ignored the tripadvisor reviews in favour of the place being nearby, and it was spectacularly bad! In Chicago, we ended up at The Purple Pig, currently ranked number 12 on the Chicago restaurant tripadvisor ratings. Apparently mum had read about it in some magazine, so we were pretty lucky to get a seat at the bar straight away. The food was fantastic, even more so because it was so affordable. The Purple Pig is a very friendly place, the waiting staff are lovely and the food is based around sharing platters. We had the pork rillettes from the "Smears" section, scallop spiedini and some rib tips, which were amazing. The wonderful thing here is you can order as you go along. So if you are still peckish, you can pick something else from the menu. Although after these, we were stuffed!

We headed up the Magnificent Mile, so called because it is full of shops, both regular clothing stores to high end places. Little shopping was done, not because we didn't want to, but there was so much more to see. We then backtracked and headed back down via the lake front towards Navy Pier, stopping at the beach and a fab beach bar playing salsa style beats for a beer along the way.

The walk towards the beach  and Navy Pier (where the Ferris wheel is). If you look closely you'll see someone swimming, which is amazing considering how cold the water is at the moment!

The people on these boats were definitely having a party - definitely need to make friends with someone who owns a boat!

Navy Pier is apparently Chicago's biggest tourist attraction. It reminded me of an upmarket Coney Island (an amusement park area with a boardwalk on the sea near NY). Navy Pier is well known for its amusement attractions and fireworks display every Wednesday and Saturday night. We were pretty knackered by the time we got here. It was a nice place, full of families. There were also some nice views back towards the city.

The Navy Pier Ferris Wheel

We had had plans of grabbing some food but night was starting to fall so we wandered back to The Loop walking along the lake and via Millenium Park, so I could get on the underground before it got too late.

A glimpse of Millenium Park

Impressions? I love Chicago, it's a beautiful city. I'm really looking forward to exploring it further when another friend swings by next weekend to visit.

4th July

So I got to experience 4th July in the USA. The 4th July is Independence Day in the USA and is characterised by BBQ, hot dogs, loads of flags, fireworks and enjoying time with family and friends. The weather was phenomenal. I decided that before I start with my plans of going to the parade and the beach, that I would go for a run by the lakefront. People were already settling in for the day at the parks bordering the lake. There were BBQ grills on the go, people had set up canopy tents and gazebos and music was playing, all at 10am! Definitely a party vibe going on.

The parade in Evanston was ok, bit slow to start, but once it going it was the slice of Americana that I had been looking for. Some 140 different organisations from the area were represented from big bands, to cheerleaders, politicians, scouts and even the local fire brigade! Two hours in the sun was enough, for both me and my poor phone which couldn't cope in the 30C+ heat!

My original plan had been to hang out at the beach, eat more hot dogs and then watch the Evanston fireworks. Didn't fancy going downtown by myself to watch the big ones there, since the metro isn't particularly safe at night when you're on your own. Especially if you are a weirdo magnet like me. However, my friend invited me to join her at a really awesome rooftop party downtown. The view was pretty good, a few tower blocks in the way but we could see the fireworks, listen to great music with some really fun people and enjoy beers & BBQ. I had such a great time and was probably one of the best days I have had here so far. The mini-hangover was well worth it!