As many of you know, Grace is a currency trader, so one of the places we wanted to visit while in Chicago is the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), which is one of the major exchanges here in Chicago. Everything from grain to currency futures and options are traded on this exchange and it has just merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form the CME Group.
Today was a day of firsts for us in Chicago. We came out on ABC 7 live news for the first time, we also saw it snowing - or something close - for the first time in our trip, we got to see our first museums of Chicago, and we got to see Lake Michigan for the first time. Yes, we’ve been in Chicago for a few days with a view of Lake Michigan from our window but we’ve never gotten around to going down to see it till today.
One good thing about the jetlag we still have, is that we sleep early and get up early almost every day now. This makes it easy for us to for example be at the ABC studio at 8am, or take a morning stroll down the loop on a Sunday morning. The loop is the business district in central Chicago, but I wouldn’t recommend taking an early stroll on the weekend. It is nearly deserted, and at times can be a bit creepy with shady characters walking around.
We had one such encounter with a shady character today, we were having a warm drink at a McDonald (the only thing we could find open) in the loop when someone came in asking everyone for money. After we got out to leave he followed us, and started shouting all kinds of obscenities in our direction. So we did what anyone sensible would, we avoided him completely and walked quickly in the opposite direction, ducking into the first shop that was open. It was a bit scary as here in the US you never know who might be carrying a gun, and if he was high - he seemed so by the way he was shouting - he might have used it for no good reason.
After that, we decided to leave the loop and head to the more crowded areas. We decided to see a few museums on the way, with most of them having free entrance at this time of year.
The “crowded” areas of Chicago on a Sunday morning
It then started snowing lightly - what they call “flurries” here - and we decided to walk through Millennium Park down to the lake. There we met the local population of gray squirrels that were busy prancing around looking for food. They seemed very used to humans as when we would put out our hands they would come close looking for food.
As we mentioned in our previous post, Chicago is known for its great architecture. And with so many cool buildings everywhere, they decided they wanted to make a place where you could see all of them at just one glance. So they got renowned artist Anish Kapoor to create the Cloud Gate, also dubbed affectionately by Chicagoans as “The Bean” - a shiny stainless steel sculpture, in the shape of, well a bean of course. This artistic beauty is situated in the opened-in-2004 Millennium Park in downtown Chicago.
Chicago reflected in “The Bean”
Ok, so I might have been exaggerating slightly about being able to see all the buildings in The Bean, but it does give a cool effect of the skyline. And of course, because of its reflectiveness and odd shape, there are many people all around it taking photos of their reflections on The Bean. We too had fun staring at ourselves there!
Touching our reflection
And just below The Bean is the McCormick ice skating rink, watch the video below to see it in action:
p.s. If you’re in Chicago, make sure to tune in to the ABC Morning News in Chicago tomorrow the 13th of January as we’ll be appearing around 8:30-45 am We’ll tell you more about how it goes tomorrow!
Chicago has been called the Windy City, but this was because of long-winded politicians rather than a weather phenomenon. Coming from the tropics though, this city does seem like a cold city. And we’re not talking about the people - they are great! It’s just the -2 to +2 degrees Celsius or lower temperature that takes us a bit of time to get used to after coming from around 27-30 degC we’re used to.
Watch the video below for more:
Another thing Chicago is known for is the architecture of its buildings. After taking a walk through town, it’s not hard to see why. There are some amazing buildings, skyscrapers with Gothic spires and flying buttresses. Many of the buildings also have a 20’s look to them and they still maintain the grandeur of the time.
We’ll tell you more about how it goes tomorrow!
