Spring Break in Chicago

After UIUC I spent the weekend in Chicago with Pierre and his wife Nicki. Nicki lives in Chicago's Near North in the 9th floor of a 30-something floor building. These appartment blocks are shooting up all over this part of Chicago as people rediscover the joy of living downtown.

It happened to be St Patrick's that weekend, which is celebrated in a big way in many parts of the US. We didn't see the parade, but thousand of people in cheap green beads were milling everywhere. The long-suffering Chicago river, previously used to get rid of masses of offal and sewerage and later having its course reversed (so the offal and sewerage would go elsewhere) gets spiffed up by having huge amounts of green dye dumped into it for the occasion. Its all about green awareness.





Chicago has some awesome architecture, both from the last century (lots of very fine art deco) and this new one - the pavillion of the Millenium Park by Frank Gehry is stunning. I have more photos of Chicago up on Flickr.









On Saturday evening we met up with Mark McNally (also a friend from Wits and now living in Chicago) and went for an excellent meal at a restaurant called the Green Zebra before diving back into some of the St Patrick's late-late revelries.