Chicago: The Adventures of Saara, Meeri and Marie (with funny details)

On the place where Chicago was built there was originally no river flowing to the Lake Michigan, only marsh between the lake and the Illinois River system. A canal was dug through in 1840's and it's now called Chicago River. Later the rivers flow was reversed (yes!) to flow away from the lake to keep the lake water clean.



There are a lot of revolving doors in Chicago. We were told that normal doors would not work in a skyscraper because in tall buildings air pressure differences between inside and outside would cause strong drafts.



Over 250 000 trees have been planted in Chicago after 1989. We saw also thick seas of flowers, especially tulips were everywhere.





I was fascinated by the El-trains. They ride on elevated tracks above the traffic and between the buildings in their own small universe. The elevated structure is bare, rusted and stangely beautiful.










There are weird big statues in the city. Here's the flamingo and the bean. The bean attracts wedding photographers. And tourists with cameras. Including us.

There are a lot of old skyscrapers in Chicago. A lot of them were built after the great fire (1871) that destroyed almost everything. We attended an architectural tour (it was great) and learned to tell apart three different styles: the Chicago style (with three layers), the art deco (reaching the skies) and the beaux art (pretending to be classical).

We also visited the tallest building in the world measured by the height to the top of the antenna. According to Wikipedia there are four categories in the contest of being worlds tallest building: 1. Height to the structural or architectural top, 2. Height to the highest occupied floor, 3. Height to the top of the roof, 4. Height to the top of antenna.

The longest time was spent in the Art Intitute. It does not come close to the big museums in Europe, but nevertheless it was awesome. I learned who Georgia O'Keeffe is and we saw the funny picture of the sad people. And they had a great exhibition where I saw some old friends.


We also saw a Broadway musical, drank Cosmopolitans, ate at Chicagos oldest restaurant, saw rabbits at night, did some souvenir shopping, spent a lot of time trying to find bars, restaurants and cafes, and laughed, walked our feet tired and generally had fun. And we took care to leave a lot of things to do for our next visit.

For proof of any other activities, check my picture account and Meeri's pictures.