The Third-Most Populous City in the US of A

Coming from Switzerland, Chicago and Illinois are a bit of a shock to the system. It is amazingly flat here. Not a mountain or high hill to be seen anywhere.It was kind of surreal flying in last week, flying down from Canada, down the massive Lake Michigan and then all of a sudden, there were skyscrapers on the edge of the lake then urban sprawl. America is also a bit of a shock to the system. The huge cars and roads here really can't be found anywhere else in the world.

Today we finally got the day off and they provided buses to and from Chicago for us to explore the city which is just visible on the horizon from FermiLab. It is interesting to note that it is ranked as the third mot populous city in the country, it only has 3 million people within the bounds of the city, which is less than Sydney's 4.2 million people and actually less then Melbourne's 3.8 million people. It must have something to do with how the bounds of a city are defined.

Working around the downtown area, you feel so small as the buildings are so tall, and it's actually quite pleasant to walk around as they always provide shade. The levels of the city are also kind of crazy, with one of the streets having three levels. A walkway at the river level, an upper boulevard and a lower roadway. As well as the multilevel streets, there are also supposedly multitude of tunnels under the city, for the subway, for water supply, old freight and supply tunnels, now used for utility and communication lines.

Other facts I found interesting about the city is the canal that was built so that the sewerage of the city via the Chicago River wouldn't flow in their water supply being Lake Michigan. There was already a canal there for shipping, but they deepened it so that it would be lower than the lake so water from the North branch of the river would go to the canal instead of to the lake. So now the treated sewerage goes down to St Louis rather than out to the lake and they can deal with it. The other towns around the lake weren't too impressed with this, worried that the canal would take too much water from the lake, Chicago then built a lagoon and lock system to restrict water flow.

Anyway, enough about the city and my impressions and onto what we did. We first walked around to look for a cruise company office to buy tickets for a cruise around sunset. Then we walked along the river to the Sears Tower to go to the observation deck on the 103rd floor. Sears Tower was once the tallest building in the world, and they still claim to be if you include the two television antennae on the top. It was built in the 1970s in only 3 years and is designed like a set of tubes, all starting at the base and only one goes the highest. Supposedly on a clear day you can see to 4 different states.



As you can see from this photo, it wasn't perfectly clear by the time we got up to the SkyDeck, but the view was still magnificent. Lots of tall buildings and the Lake looking eastwards, and flat land as far as the eye could see westwards. It was also very cool as there was an Air and Water Show on in Chicago that day, and we could see the planes from the deck. I've always found it strange viewing foreign cities from above as I don't know many of the landmarks to look at, but it's cool to be that high up in a building. It was very very full of people though.

After coming down, we went in search of Pizzeria Uno/Pizzeria Due for the original Deep Dish Chicago style pizza. We found the restaurant eventually, with the help of a mobile phone equipped with Internet and GPS, ordered an individual pizza each, and waited. Deep dish pizza seems to take longer to cook than ordinary pizza due to the thickness of the crust and filling, it's kind of like eating a pizza flavoured pie, particularly since the sauce is on top and the filling on the inside, so it doesn't dry out. It was very tasty, though I wasn't able to finish it.

By this time, we were tired and it was over 30 degrees out, so we walked the main shopping street in town, stopping at the Apple store, to the Hancock Tower, then out to the lakefront, where we were going to swim, until we saw the rubbish in the water and all the people there. So we just went to the park at the start of Navy Pier and rested. While we were there, we saw this little guy pop out of the bushes, hop around and eat grass. He wasn't scared of us at all.



Then it was time for our cruise. First we went around the Chicago River, with the guide pointing out the interesting buildings and explaining their history. There are a couple of ones I remember, but I won't bore you all with it here. The most interesting one, engineering wise, is the Boeing Headquarters, which the train lines run below, meaning that they weren't allowed to put columns down to the bedrock, so instead a whole wing for the building is supported from above by steel trusses, which looks very disturbing from the lower river level.



The boat then headed out towards the lake, after going through the lock system. And I look about 20 skyline/sunset photos, of which is one. I also learn about what changing the ISO on the camera does, which I used in the next photo.



This Cloud Gate sculpture was the first and last stop of the day, which is just a huge reflective jelly bean, which somebody must have to clean everyday and also stop pigeons from leaving white matter on it. It looks very cool on the inside, with the warping of the reflective surface and making interesting images. I have heaps of photos of this as well, but this is one of my favourites, with the lights and curved buildings.