Just got back from this city a few hours ago. The family spent six days together in the city, primarily to attend my dad's receiving a public service award from the University of Chicago (good job, Pops), and secondarily to have a long overdue family vacation. Quite a lot of things happened so will see if I can even get most of the highlights down in this blog post.
I guess I can start in the middle, which was the awarding ceremony itself. The short of it is that thanks to a good friend of my dad's and fellow alum of the university, Tita Nita, a nomination for the award was put through, and voila it actually got through the committee. The ceremony was in the Rockefeller Chapel, and took a very civilized 75 minutes to complete. There were other interesting folk who received awards as well, complete with a 60 second thank yous and speech period a la Academy Awards. Those who made a bit of an impression on me were Janet Davison Rowley -- the matriach of genetics according to the NYT, 80 something woman who bikes around campus -- and Sidney Hyman, who was a speechwriter for Robert Kennedy. Hearing people exude intelligence is still a novelty for me, 'coz I live in a certain part of the world I think. Pops gave his speech also, which was pretty good, quite punchy and I won't give all the details but I thought it was good. If you must know who was there here's the link: http://bit.ly/eHFFql.
Incidentally, I should put out a special mention to young alumni service awardee Koren Phillips 'coz she went ballistic on the mucked up way the shuttle was operating during the day. She got all biatchy when I couldn't. Kasi naman may K siya.
In the course of this trip we couldn't but spend a lot of time in Hyde Park, the overly described as leafy neighborhood where the university is set, and factoidally where Barack Obama's house is. The neighborhood is naturally very academic; I just presume that well-off tenured professors live in all the old houses all over the place. Of all the places we visited on campus/Hyde Park, two most stuck out. One was the seminary coop bookstore, a massive warren of a bookstore in the basement of what seems like a church, and also lets you know which books are required reading for students in their various courses (a lot, poor things). The second was the apartment of the aforementioned Tita Nita and her husband Uncle Jim. It's a long apartment on the third floor of a building that has its community garden next to it. We spent good time here making breakfast/brunch early in the week, and then celebrating post-ceremony. The "adults" of the group actually went heavy on the wine during the celebratory dinner, including Tita Nita who was even more gregarious than usual. :)
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If part of our trip was about the Southside of Chicago, about Hyde Park and the University, and all the academic folk surrounding us, a good part of trip was also right smack in the center of the city, and the architectural cluster bomb that made me want to learn more about architecture and at the same time re-watch the Dark Knight. The day our cab dropped us to our hotel's brilliant location on E Wacker Drive, we thought: this is GOTHAM. And with bizarrely good weather. So good that I found myself taking 530 am morning runs down Michigan avenue through Millennium Park and around Lake Michigan (um, did having jet lag have anything to do with it?). But really the architecture is pretty rocking, and I don't think a city has ever give me this much 'structural attitude'. On that note, one of the best places to buy souvenir stuff is the well curated Chicago Architecture Foundation store fronting the Art Institute. No bulls/bears/blackhawks jerseys. Ha.
We were in Chicago so we had to do the museums. Too overwhelming to talk about it, but here's the main thing: Art Institute of Chicago > > > Field Museum. The Field will still kick the butt of 99% of the other museums out there, but I was disappointed that they hadn't updated the geography data of their Africa exhibit since 1993. We were going to do the Shedd Aquarium, but we ran out of time and it wasn't too cheap either. I was talking to a cousin on the phone about how maybe I should make an attempt for the Shedd Aquarium because of the Philippine reef exhibit which I shouldn't miss. She said: that's okay, just go home and look at the real thing. Good advice.
Originally our plan was to do the some food tripping and eat at some places which had gotten a lot of attention like the Girl and the Goat but it was pretty impossible to get a reservation. So we settled for eating deep dish pizza, greek food (no more Cyma for us), italian, and the best ribs I've had in a long while. Each morning also I ended up eating fruit parfaits at the corner cafe a literal stone's throw from the hotel. Let's just say I'm going to have aggressively diet now that I'm home.
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One trip highlight would have to be something that we would have missed if my sister hadn't bothered browsing through a TimeOut Chicago while we were lunching and coffeeing at the Art Institute. Manila Luzon show at Boystown. We watched this fabulous heather at Spin bar, got wasted with Mahar and Chicago-based college friend Vicky at Roscoe's, and ended the evening with the Manila Luzon meet and greet. I had all of 30 seconds to pose for a photo and tell Manila: we're from the Philippines and you have graciously and beautifully represented our country. Everyone at home loves you (this last bit from Mahar). Okay, we exaggerated a bit telling her all that but we really thought she was awesome.
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This was the best family bonding trip we've had I think. But gonna end with saying that the times alone were actually pretty good, too. On my last full day, I just had the urge to get some art supplies. Ended up getting something at Utretch Art supply store on S Wabash Avenue. Ably assisted by a red-headed 20 something who helped me pick paintbrushes out. She asked me so what are you going to do / why are you painting something? I said, I just feel like it. She goes, yeah that's a good reason.
I took a few short rides around the Loop area on the pink and orange lines before heading back to the hotel to create a watercolor of the map of Chicago.
