Using public transport
in New York City is surprisingly easy. With very little effort or anxiety, I
managed to find my way from Penn Station to Jamaica Station to JFK Airport and
then onto my Jet Blue plane to Chicago.
I sat next to a
charming mechanical engineering student from India (whose name now escapes me)
she was studying at the University of Illinois. Unfortunately (I type tongue in
cheek) she lent me a pair of earphones to listen to the in-flight news…
unnervingly the breaking news story was of a major air crash at the San
Francisco airport where a South Korean airliner had crashed and burst into
flames on landing. Not the sort of visuals you want when you’re cruising at
36,000 feet. Fortunately, my trip was pleasant and uneventful.
Former columnist with
the Chicago Sun-Times media group, Joani Foster, who I’d met at the NSNC
Conference the week before had invited me to come and stay. Joani met me at
O’Hare International late on Saturday night and drove me back to her home at St.
Charles, Illinois – a city of 33,000 on the banks of the Fox River about an
hour west of Chicago.
The next day we eased
into the final day of the weekend by attending the Unity Church of Fox Valley’s
Sunday morning service and joining fellow churchgoers afterwards for a
delicious lunch.
I’d been praying to
find a large antique or bric-a-brac centre… my prayers were answered after
lunch when we learnt the monthly Kane County Flea Market (antiques, collectibles & fancy junque "Best in the Midwest
or Anywhere!") was open for
the weekend. I spent a fascinating few hours wandering around the hundreds of
stalls and chatting with various stallholders. I learnt all about collecting
antique fishing lures from Sam, who
explained the value of lures still in their
original boxes and the merits of various miniature oil cans used to oil fishing
reels. Another stallholder, Jim, explained the difference between numerous
vintage baseball mitts and Dave and Sue further down enlightened me on coin
silver flatware (pre 1880 silver cutlery produced by melting silver coins)… you
just never know when this sort of information could come in handy.
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| Vintage fishing lures |
Monday was my day
designated to visit downtown Chicago. Former home to one of the most notorious
American gangsters of the 20th century, Al Capone (1899-1947),
Chicago was founded in 1833. Today, it is an architecturally beautiful city of
2.8million people, built on the shore of Lake Michigan. I caught an early
morning train from Geneva Station into the city with Joani meeting me for lunch
later on.
I booked a 10am Segway
PT tour with City Segway Tours. A Segway PT (Segway Personal Transporter) is best
described as (my new favourite toy) a battery-powered stand-up scooter. It is a fun form of
two-wheeled transport invented in 2001 by American businessman and inventor,
Dean Kamen. Environmentally friendly, the self-balancing, electric powered
machine works by using internal gyroscopes and tilt sensors (lean your weight
forward and the Segway moves forward; lean back and the Segway slows, stops and
goes backwards). They are an ideal way of touring a town or city and can travel
at speeds up to 20km/hr and cover a maximum distance of 38km on a single
battery charge. City Segway Tours run rain, hail or shine… as luck would have
it, I had rain. Torrential rain.
I was paired with a
lovely family of five from Arizona, who were taking a break from the olive
groves they owned. As lightning and thunder flashed and crashed overhead, I was
thinking it was probably a good thing I’d attended church the day before…
A Segway is
surprisingly easy to ride and after some brief instruction from our cheerful
and knowledgeable tour guide, Segway-Master Clark, and about five or ten
minutes practising; we were all zooming around quite comfortably… in fact, some
of us were wondering how to override the speed limiters…
Our three-hour tour
took us past Soldier Field; a football stadium opened in 1924, it serves as a memorial to American soldiers who have died in wars and
since 1971, it has been home to
the National Football League’s Chicago Bears.
Further along the
tour, we came to the Shedd Aquarium, built in 1930; it was once the largest
aquarium in the world. Stopping at a nearby lookout gave us views across Monroe
Harbor to Navy Pier and the panoramic skyline of the city. While we were there,
I took the opportunity to glide up to a hot dog stand and purchase and eat
a
Chicago-style hot dog. Consisting of a steamed all-beef frankfurter on a poppy
seed bun with yellow mustard, onion, sweet pickle relish, tomato, red peppers,
a dill pickle and celery salt – it was a tasty snack when you’re cold, wet and
hungry!
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| Chicago-style Hot Dog |
We zoomed along Lake
Shore Drive, stopping for a Kodak moment in front of one of the world’s largest
fountains, the substantial Buckingham Fountain. Modelled after the Latona
Fountain at Versailles in France, the Buckingham Fountain has been a Chicago
landmark since 1927. From there we made our way to the beautiful Millennium
Park – officially opened in 2004, it holds Indian-born
British artist, Anish Kapoor’s
mighty sculpture, Cloud Gate, known more commonly as The Bean.
The Bean was completed
and unveiled in 2006. Moulded out of seamless, mirror-polished stainless steel
this massive sculpture weighs in at around 100 tonnes. Resembling a gigantic blob of liquid
mercury, this whimsical work of art has taken first place in my all time favourite
modern outdoor sculptures. The mirror-polished stainless steel reflects the
famous skyline of Chicago as well as the thousands of tourist who come to
photograph it. Once the tour had finished, I walked back to The Bean and waited
to meet Joani.
After a delicious lunch
at The Park Grille, we walked down the road to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Inside the 1893 building was a treasure trove of art and artefacts spread over
one million square feet. I loved the Thorne Rooms; a gallery of some 86-miniature
rooms by American artist, Narcissa Niblack Thorne (May 2, 1882 – June 25,
1966). With extraordinary detail, the Thorne Rooms allow you to vicariously
glimpse European interiors from the late 13th century to the 1930s and American
furnishings from the 17th century to the 1930s.
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| Massachusetts Living Room and Kitchen 1675 - 1700 |
Other artistic
treasures we viewed included Marc Chagall’s America
Windows or “Chagall Windows” which
famously appeared in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; the
Arthur Rubloff Collection of Paperweighs
(one of the largest collections in the world) and Grant Wood’s famous 1930 oil
painting American Gothic.
By the time we got to
Geneva Station it was quite late (after 9.30pm); driving back to Saint Charles
from the station we saw a couple of skunks. It appeared to be Pepe le Pew and
Mrs le Pew, out for an evening stroll. Afraid to get too close, I took a couple
of pretty ordinary photographs… better that than getting sprayed by the highly
offensive chemicals they produce in their anal scent glands, Joani assured me.
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| Pepe le Pew the skunk... not my best photographic effort |
For my final day Joani
and I attended a morning yoga class at the huge state-of-the-art Delnor Health
and Wellness Centre, followed by lunch with Joani’s writing group (Joyce,
Roseanne and Kate) at a pub in Batavia overlooking the fast-flowing Fox River.
Our last stop for the
day was the big Kohls department store, where I bought some sports clothes… in
anticipation of a serious health kick for when I got home to counteract the
intensive and dedicated food research I had conducted whilst visiting the
United States…
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| With Joani's writing group |
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