Chicago River Architecture Tour - Main Branch

We originally planned to take this cruise from Navy Pier, but our first morning at the Sheraton in downtown Chicago was a little, hmm, relaxed.

We got a very late start, so we started with lunch.  At the hotel burger joint.  On the water.  And then a very long, lazy discussion about what we really were going to do that day.  We discovered that we could take the architecture cruise from Michigan Ave and the River Esplanade, just a couple of blocks away.

Main Branch:

Wrigley Building, built 1919-1925

• The shape of the tower is patterned after La Giralda, part of Seville Cathedra
• The clock in the South Tower is two stories hight.  The dials are just over 19 feet in diameter, the hands just over 6 feet, and the minute hand are 9 feet.  The original redwood hands were recently replaced for durability.

Trump Tower (401 North Wabash)

• I didn't take any photos from the river because I already had this one!

Modern AMA Plaza (330 N Wasbash), built 1969-1971

• Has an unusually robust electrical system to handle all the monster computer in the 60s/70s.
• The building used to have spectacular views of Lake Michigan, but lost them when Trump Tower was built... bastard.

Goldberg/Corncobs/Marina City (300 North State Street), built 1964-1967

• Marina City has appeared in several movies, and twice cars have crashed off the parking levels into the river (both were staged, once for the movie The Hunter, and the other for an Allstate commercial)
• Marina City was designed to be a city within a city.  A place residents would rarely need to leave.  At one point it included: a grocery store, pharmacy, florist, gift shop, travel agency, bank, barber shop/beauty salon, bars and restaurants, a health club and skating rink.

Reid Murdoch Building aka Central Office Building (325 North LaSalle Drive), built 1913-1914

• Wanted to connect the building to the river and built a concrete dock that extended the length of the warehouse so people could enter at any point along the riverfront.
• The SS Eastland docked across the river with 2,572 passengers on July 25, 1915.  At 7:28 a.m. it rolled sharply to port, and ended up on its side trapping hundreds of passengers underwater.  844 passengers (many women and children), and 4 crew died.  The basement and first floor of the building were used as temporary hospital and morgue, and many believe the building is haunted by these souls.

The Chicago School (325 North Wells), built 1914

• Popular style in Chicago architecture that modeled the building after a classical column, divided into 3 parts.
• The lower floors were the base 
• The middle floors usually had some ornamental detail to act as the shaft of the column
• The top few floors were the cornice and generally included a lot of ornamental detail.

Merchandise Mart (222 Merchandise Mart Plaza), built 1923-1931

• 4.2 million square feet!  This building is Ginormous!
• At the time of completion it was the largest office building in the world (eventually surpassed by the Pentagon).  It had its own zip code.
• Busts of historic Chicago merchants line the river

Nuveen Builidng (333 Wacker Drive), built 1979-1983

• Was Mr Bueler's office building in Ferris Bueler's Day Off
• The river side is an arc of blue-green glass, but the street side has to adhere to the strict grid system

55 West Wacker, built 1968

• Sometimes called the pound building - it's sort of shaped like #

Leo Burnett Building (35 West Wacker), built 1989

   -77 West Wacker, built 1992
   -55 West Wacker

• They skipped the 49th floor, so they can claim it to be 50 stories tall

Jeweler's Builidng (35 East Wacker Drive), built 1924-1926

• Created for the city's diamond merchants
• Included a interior auto elevator the would lift cars as high as the 22nd floor (to prevent muggings) until around World War II
• The dome used to have a restaurant that was also rumored to be a speakeasy run by Al Capone during Prohibition

Hard Rock Hotel (230 North Michigan Ave), built 1929

• aka Carbide and Carbon Building
• It's Green, It's Gold, It's ART DECO!
• Rumor has it that a champagne bottle inspired the design and color scheme
• The gold is actual 24k gold leaf

Mather Tower (75 East Wacker), built 1926-1928

• I don't remember anything she really said about this building, but was fascinated by these 4 buildings being smashed together.

Swissotel (323 East Wacker Drive), built 1986-1988

• The building points north so 2 sides face the river with unobstructed views
• It's a triangle!
• Includes 7 levels beneath street level
• Don't even get me started on lower Wacker Drive

NBC Building (454 North Columbus Dr), built 1985-1989

• Was across the street from our hotel, we could see it from our window.
• It's logo in the lower street level, helped our us navigate our Lyft/Uber drivers back to street level multiple times.
• Home to the Jerry Springer Show
• I apparently didn't take any pictures of this building, but I saw it every single day.

Intercontinental Hotel (505 North Michigan Ave), built 1929

• It's an onion dome
• With a blimp/zepplin landing pad
• It light's up purple at night

Chicago Tribune Tower (435 North Michigan Ave), built 1922-1925

• Inspired by the Button Tower at Rouen Cathedral
• The base of the building has stones imported from locations all over the world, including the Parthenon, the pyramids, Taj Mahal, the Alamo, and the Great Wall of China

Skyline from where the river meet the lake:




Centennial Fountain was dedicated in 1989 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.  (Basically the reversing the flow of the river to make sure the city water was clean.)  Every hour it shoots a water arc across the river for 10 minutes.

The Story of Tonight

5 Things - Hamilton Edition

You guys, I had such crazy high expectations for Hamilton.  And the actual show, exceeded them all.  It was one of the best nights ever....and I hope I get to see it over and over and over again.  (Best $200 I've ever spent.)

1. We got to the theater, and the energy was already TOP VOLUME!


This is what Cortney's face looks like in pictures:


And mine:


Slightly better:




2. There were these cute girls selling bottled water in the lobby.  We were totally reminded of the "Ice Cold Watta, for a Dolla" girls at the Kentucky Derby.


3. What time is it?  SHOWTIME, SHOWTIME!




We had insanely good seats, actually.  The only ones better were 3 rows ahead, right on the rail.




The whole theater was literally buzzing.  Every single person was as excited to be there as we were.  Every single person.  It really speaks to the truth that Lin Manuel Miranda has often expressed, that this is a living, breathing thing and that the experience is created between those on stage and those in audience, and no other performance will be quite the same.  So amazing.

4. I didn't bring my purse just put my wallet and phone in Cort's.  Cort was apparently not raised by Julene Taylor and did not have ANY TISSUES!  This was the worst thing to happen all night.  Because....

5.  I cried like a baby through almost the whole thing.  I cried at all the normal stuff, that I always cry at listening to the album, but seeing it person was a whole new level of emotion.

Bonus Things:
6.  Karen Olivo is miraculous as Angelica.  The most surprising thing to me was that I literally sobbed the entire way through Satisfied.  I have never cried during Satisfied, never.  It was always just a fun little song, where Angelica gets to rap, and Eliza and Alexander get married.  But Karen Olivo....the emotion she put into that song.  Wow!  It poured out sacrifice, and pain, and truly giving up your soul mate for your family's social progression, and your sister's happiness.  It hurt so much.  Especially when she sang, "At least I keep your eyes in my life...."   SOBBING (with no tissues).

7. I kind of forget, just listening to the album that these actors and actually acting.  Full body, total emotion acting.  It was so much funnier than I thought. It was so much funner than I thought.  It was sadder, and more painful, and more inspiring than I thought.  Like I said......  it was worth every penny.

Battle of the Deep Dish Part One - Giordano's

After a day of Frank Lloyd Wright and a quick visit to my Illinois colleagues to say hi, we made our way to the first stop of the deep dish pizza-off.  We only tried two places, but they are the most well known and Chicago-specific of the deep dish titans.

Up first Giordano's:


Giordano's definitely wins on availability.  There seem to be a million of 'em scattered around the Chicago area.  This one was only about a mile away from my Illinois office.

We got there during happy hour so we loaded up on half-priced appetizers, including garlic fries and cheese bread.

The garlic bread was really cheesy, and it was kind of a half loaf cut into strips.  The marinara was slightly spicy, but good.  I apparently didn't get a picture of the cheese bread, but here is a picture of the adorable container for the garlic fries:


We also managed to talk our way into special blood-orange margaritas.  They weren't on the menu, and I'm not quite sure how it happened, but they rustled up a special just for us.


Everyone told us to get at least a medium pizza because it was a) super delicious and we'd eat a bunch, and b) super delicious cold/warmed up.  We defied recommendations and got the small.  It ended up being a very, very wise choice.

It takes a good 45 minutes or so for a deep dish pizza to cook, so we stuffed ourselves with the appetizer and conversation.

When our pizza finally arrived they do a whole presentation... and dish it up for you.

(Okay, so this was technically someone else's pizza, but the angle on ours was not as good)

This was ours, so cheesy.  We went with a traditional pepperoni pizza to make the comparison easier.



I do not love super saucy pizza, and I knew that deep dish (Giordano's specifically) has a whole lotta sauce on top.  But sometimes I think you just gotta try it the way it is made and experience it the way it is meant to be experienced.  I was actually pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as saucy as expected.

I was, however, surprised that the crust tasted very much like a regular pie crust.  Or maybe a pot pie crust?  I don't know, but the crust definitely wasn't the high point, and I usually LOVE pizza crust.


Overall, though - it was so delicious.  Cort and I had a debate about whether we were too full to eat another piece.  We were, but decided we owed it to Chicago to eat anther piece anyway.  I'm so glad we got the small pie.

We also treated ourselves to cannoli, which we didn't eat that night, but had for breakfast the next day.  They were so good, I again, did not bother taking a picture before eating them.

Portillos

I have several friends who either hail from the Chicago area or currently live in the Chicago area so recommendations for what to see, do, and eat were not in short supply.

I chose mid-May for this trip in the hope that the weather would be perfect - not to hot, not to cold, and hopefully nice and sunny.  This mostly ended up being true, but not on the first day.  Cort flew in around noon, and I arrived about 7:30 p.m.   It was pouring rain, the airport was crowded, there was some sort of military arrival going on and a BAND at TOP VOLUME in the baggage area.  Anyone who knows me knows how much I dislike noise and crowds, and this was not a very auspicious welcome to the Windy City.  (Or was it merely a nod to Hamilton's Helpless opening?)

Cort picked me up and off we went...like a herd of turtles.  The GPS seemed to really want us to stay away from the freeway, so we took a lot of back roads, including one with a flood detour (did I mention the rain?)  We were also racing the clock.  It was about 8 pm; I hadn't eaten much all day, and I was starving.

Of the many recommendations for where to eat, Portillos consistently came up on the list as a Chicago standard.  Portillos closed at 9 pm, but we thought we could make it.  Cort had seen one (and the hotel clerk had recommended it at check-in) near the hotel.  We watched the expected arrival time creep closer and closer to 9 on the GPS when we passed Portillos.  Or at least we passed a Portillos.  By this time, we were both pretty suspicious of the GPS, the dark, rainy night, and our ability to know exactly where we were.

So we turned back and ate at that Portillos - which I had only noticed because I thought it was a movie theater ala Alamo Drafthouse or Brewvies.



I was encouraged to order the half and half, wet.  So that is what I did.  The half and half is half Italian beef and half  sausage, and "wet" means it has been soaked in the au jus from the beef.  Sounded like a solid plan to me.


My assessment.  It was wet, all right.  Maybe don't get it wet.  Maybe just get it dipped (or whatever the not as wet option is).  It made it impossible to eat without knife and fork, but it was tasty.



After dinner we finally found our hotel (and passed another Portillos - the Portillos we thought we were driving to!) and settled in for the night.  and by settled in I, of course, mean talked until 2 am.

A Two-Act Play About Being Single

The scene: I hate Comcast right now.  As in, really hate them, and I've been in Texas for 2 years and just signed a contract to be here another 2 (can you believe - 4 consecutive years in the same place?!) so I decided to explore my satellite provider options.  The following is a real text conversation that happened while the installer was here the second time.

ACT I:

Me: I'm sitting here thinking if this DirectTV guy here murders me someone is going to have to babysit my Amazon deliveries for the next month.  Cause I ordered a shit-ton of presents for myself.  #badweek  #stuffsinglewomenthinkabout

C: LOL Don't tell him there are packages coming.... #freegiftswithmurder  

Me: He would just shove me in the closet and hang out in my apartment.

Me: OMG if I got murdered while I was still logged in to work they could probably keep a half decent "she's alive" ruse going for at least a week depending on my meeting schedule.

C:  And the family would never know....

Me:  Do murderers know how to use Outlook?! Social Media?!

C: 😱 If they plan right they do....they could post politics and Hamilton once a day

Me: I'm lucky to be alive right now (#HamiltonReference this was not included in the text; C knows Hamilton) how have I lasted this long?

Me: He actually seems like a really nice guy.  He offered to come back off the clock to look at my wiring because he used to be a Comcast tech.  Which is why I'm totally suspicious.  Who is that nice?

C: That's exactly what I was going to say.  And if he comes back off the clock there's no record to trace back to him being there at the time of the incident.  

C: Haha seriously...I'm gonna have to step up my check-ins on you.  Although if you don't answer I find that normal....  (I once got a text from C that said, "If I call you on Friday @ 7 will you actually answer?")

Me:  I know!  I've told my co-workers they need to call 911 for a welfare check if I just don't show up for work, but DAMN if I'm logged in from home....  (My team members all work in CA so as long as I'm logged in it doesn't matter if I'm in the office.  I work from home a couple of days a week, and for a couple of hours most mornings. My co-workers in TX are used to me keeping a weird schedule and wouldn't think anything about it if I didn't show up at the office for a couple of weeks.)

C:  They'd never know....  You'll have to establish some kind of code email they can send to prove it's you. It's gotta be something non-googleable.

Me: I feel like I also can't text you a safe question cause the murderer would also have my phone.

Me: I just got the blue screen of death on my computer so someone will call 911 on Monday. It's the bright side of losing 2 hours worth of work.

C: LOL, Oh Man!

ACT II: 

(An hour later)

Me: I'm not dead yet!  He left to go make a loaded baked potato for dinner and appears that he's just a generally good guy.

C:  Hmmm, or is that what you, MY SISTER'S MURDERER, wants me to think?!  

C: Is he bringing you back a loaded baked potato?  Cause that would make him a nice guy in my book.  LOL

Me: I wish (he was bringing me dinner)!  LOL, I'm a sweaty mess because I'm either starting menopause (with hot flashes) or having side effects from my new Fibromyalgia medication (causes sweating).   

Me: Would a murderer say menopause?!

C: Identity proven, that's better than photo ID right there.

/End Play

It Was unBelizeable!

Belize was the next port city on the list. Belize is a tender port, and Cort was pretty nervous to have to transfer ship to ship after Mom's accident, but our ship to ship transfers were smoother and safer on this trip than I've ever seen them. They took a bit of maneuvering, but they got the boats right together so we weren't ever stepping over open water.

For our shore excursion we transferred right to the boat that took us to our snorkel point, so we also came straight back to the ship instead of to shore. Cort and I decided to clean up a little bit and then take the next tender to Belize City to see what there was to see. Side note with bonus half-rant: We had been told over and over by the ship's staff not to go out of the touristic area right off the dock because it was unsafe.

I don't know if it's because I travel by myself alot or what, but most of the time I'm really suspicious when people say stuff like that without anything to back it up. Don't get me wrong I'm a very careful traveler, but a lot of times people have told me that somewhere wasn't "safe" to visit, or "safe" for women, or "safe" to explore, but they just have a low tolerance for venturing outside their carefully curated comfort-zone. /end rant.

That said, with a giant hole in my foot, I wasn't exactly in any condition to go adventuring anyway. So I'll never know if it was safe or not.

Cort had heard somewhere that you can get your passport stamped (maybe on the tender) and that was something she really wanted to do. So, when we docked we looked at a the map of stores and stuff - decided that we maybe wanted to do to the chocolate factory, and find the immigration place for passport stamps. We eventually asked directions to the immigration place (it was close to the chocolate place!), got our passports stamped, and had the guy tell us that Roatan (our next port) also had a dockside immigration office, and headed to Moho Chocolate.

The original plan was to go do the factory tour and make our own candy bars, but we ended up just buying lots of chocolate and getting milkshakes. I got a pretty good sampling - the only types I didn't get were the plain dark chocolate, and the one with chocolate nibs.  Pretty tasty stuff.



Our tender ship on the way back was crewed by some locals that looked in their 20s or so.  They were crazy-comfortable on our fast-moving boat.  One skirted around the tiny ledge outside to close the windows (while we were moving), and sometimes I'd just see one leap up on the roof, and we could hear them walking around up there the whole time.  Sometimes one of the guys would just leap and disappear and then you'd see them reappear at the other end of the boat.  Crazy balance those guys.  I'm pretty envious of that ability, tbh.

Tulum

This year's annual crossing off the list consisted of a 7 day cruise to Cozumel, Belize, and Honduras.  Cozumel doesn't have anything on The List nearby (at least not nearby enough to see in just a port day), so Cort and I talked about revisiting the Jose Cuervo tasting room.  In the end, my love of history (and the feeling that we lost out on seeing a lot of the ruins because we decided to walk to the cenote - which - Big Mistake, Big, Huge!) won out and we both decided to go to Tulum.

This ended up being a brilliant decision and I'm so glad we decided to visit here.  Our guide was excellent, the ruins here are so much prettier than those at Chichen Itza, and I felt like we got a whole lotta history bang for our buck.

In the little shopping square outside the ruins they have this pole.  Everyone once in a while these guys climb to the top, start spinning and then hang upside down and spin around.  We didn't get to see the whole show - just the first part.





Coatimundi are members of the raccoon family.  They eat lizards, snakes, birds, fruit and grubs and nearly every Mayan family in Tulum kept one as a pet.  They are super friendly and made good pets - and are pretty adorable.


Tulum's purpose in the Mayan empire was as a seaport, trading mainly in turquoise and jade. It's the only Mayan city built on a coast and one of the few protected by a wall.



The wall surrounds the city on three sides and the barrier reef provides protection from the sea.  A channel affords safe passage to the beaches below the city, and lighthouse were constructed to guide Mayan ships safely through the channel.  In order to keep hostile ships from navigating the channel the lighthouse didn't actually line up for generally accepted navigation.  Anyone not knowing the key would run aground.



This is standing at the third lighthouse and looking back down the cliff at the other one (with the castle in the middle).


Look really closely and you can see all three structures.


Our guide also said that archaeologists and historians also believe that the city was camouflaged by day.  The sea-facing structures were all painted glorious shades of blue that made it indistinguishable from the sea when viewed beyond the reef.

On top of all the history, it really is just a beautiful place to visit.










Our guide was wearing a talisman made of onyx and silver.  A traditional piece of Mayan jewelry, made by local artisans.  On it, the wearer inscribes a word or phrase of great meaning - his was his wife's name - as a touchstone, good luck, a reminder of who and what you are.  I love the idea of that, a physical reminder of something important to me and my life - so, I had one made for myself.



It was such a great day.  An amazing place to visit.  I loved our guide; he had an incredible knowledge of the history of the people and places, and was clearly proud of his ancestry.  He expressed genuine appreciation for us taking a "cultural" excursion instead of a boozy-beachy one, and spending time learning a little bit about the history of the land we were visiting.  In every port, our guides all made a point of telling us how proud they were of their country, and how they genuinely invited us to return and spend time with the local people and culture.