"Come on! Feel the Illinoise!"
Well, yesterday was rather incredible. One of the main reasons we came to Chicago was to see some proper live blues music, and yesterday we not only fulfilled but surpassed that goal! But more on that later...
We started the day late, which is becoming a bit of a feature, and headed towards Museum Park, the home of the Field Museum, Soldier Field, Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. We only had time to see one attraction, so we went to the Planetarium, which was certainly the right choice. With entry you got to choose which films you wanted to see, and we opted for a 'Journey Through The Stars' with Whoopi Goldberg, which was incredible; a fascinating trip around the cosmos looking at the creationg of stars. Very interesting. We also took a trip inside the Atwood Sphere, which was a metal planetarium built in 1913, used by the public until the 30s, and then acquired by the US Navy to teach officers how to navigate by the stars during World War II.
We saw some other exhibits, including a display on the Apollo Missions that had a lot of items donated by Jim Lovell, the astronaut who flew on Apollo 8 and Apollo 13. Having been fascinated by the Apollo Missions for as long as I can remember, it was something special seeing so many important artefacts. Another cool thing that we both loved was that the Planetarium played "space music", or "music that would not be out of place in a Star Trek film". That was fun.
After a delicious pasta dinner cooked by Charlie we headed out to Buddy Guy's Legends Blues Bar. If ever there was a Mecca for blues, it's here. The place is owned and run by Buddy Guy, one of the pioneers of the Chicago Blues Sound. The whole bar is covered in guitars owned by famous musicians: Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Muddy Waters to name a few. Buddy himself wasn't playing last night (he tends to take over the stage for the whole of January), but he was greeting people at the door. The band that we saw were called Mojo Daddy, a truly superb 4-piece that must have played for 3 or 4 hours over the course of the evening. While they were finishing their set Charlie befriended a Brazilian road construction engineer called Kiko, who quickly introduced us to the rest of his group, made up of more Brazilians (there was a conference), a German lady, and a home-grown Chicagoan. We chatted with the band for a bit before the bar closed, then headed next door to another bar, before a very late return to Lateef and Lauren's! Definitely worth the late night though, so much fun!
Today has been slightly more sedate, although we're heading to a comedy night later. We've spent most of the day walking, and made our way down to the University of Chicago, which has a beautiful campus and plenty of history. We stood on top of the site where the first controlled, sustained nuclear chain reaction took place, which was rather interesting. After our walk around the campus we headed back up to Downtown and out to Navy Pier, where you can see the best views of the city. It was even better tonight as there was a huge storm to the north, out over Lake Michigan. Remarkable sight.
Tonight we're heading to the Annoyance Theatre to see Messing With A Friend, a highly rated improv show that's not too far from here. Not sure what our plans are for tomorrow, but I'm sure we'll have plenty to write about!
Ciao ciao,
Chris and Charlie
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