A day (or week) in the Windy City

[Cross-Posted at Macs Class]
Chicago was a blast. Stressful, but a blast. We left around 11:00pm on Memorial Day and returned on Friday at about 11:45. I cannot say enough about the kids we took on this trip. They were polite and well behaved the whole time. Before this year, I could not have imagined taking eight students 600 miles away to a city of nearly 3 million people!

We got there on Tuesday afternoon and toured the Art Institute of Chicago. I have to admit, this was one of the things that I considered skipping to catch up on sleep but boy am I glad that I didn't. It was really cool to see some of the paintings that I've only seen in books. I was pretty ticked that I left my camera at the hotel because the pics that I got were on my blackberry. The first painting that I saw was Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte by Seuratt. It was unbelievable how BIG this painting is in real life! I'd say that it stood at least 15 feet tall. Maybe even 20 feet! Another painting that I really enjoyed was American Gothic by Wood. You see this done in parody everywhere and to see it in real life, up close and personal was real neat! Later that evening we went down to the Ford Oriental Theater and went back stage for Behind the Emerald Curtain and later to see the Musical, Wicked. Again, this was so cool! Without spoiling anything, the musical is based on the book, Wicked, and goes behind the scenes and takes a closer look at the characters, Elphaba (the wicked witch) & Galinda (the good witch) from the Wizard of Oz. If you are ever in Chicago, I highly recommend it, it is well worth the time and money! After the show, we walked around for what seemed like forever looking for Pizza Uno. Let me tell you, after eating there, I'd have walked twice as far to get it. It was amazing! Sandy ordered 5 pizzas and the waitress said, "mam, that will be way too much, you'll never be able to eat all that pizza." Well several of the boys took that as a personal slam against their manhood and said, "we'll eat all of it, in fact, order six pizzas!" Well, we did and took four of them out in to go boxes! No lie. The homeless of Chicago really appreciated us that night! The picture of this pie really doesn't do it justice. That pan is around 2.5-3 inches thick. Pizza Uno piles the cheese, toppings, and sauce on thick, and I mean thick! I ate all that I could (2 pieces) and was stuffed. Talk about feeding starving people, this pizza could feed a family of 6 easily.

Wednesday was not my favorite day. We spent most of the day shopping and walking and vice versa. We visited the Magnificent Mile and the Navy Pier. I wasn't very impressed, but Jenny would have loved it! I did get a pretty cool picture of the replica ferris wheel from the World Fair Expo with the sky line in the back. That night we went to Medieval Times dinner theater which was fun. The kids really enjoyed it.

Thursday was a fun day. We got to spend several hours in the Field Museum. It was really a good experience. One thing that I did notice at the museum was that there was a heavy emphasis on evolutionary thought. I mean, if that floats your boat then that's fine, but I assumed that the people at the museum would be free thinkers and not just go with the norm. I was wrong. And we also got to see the Cubs extend their win streak to 6. Of all the things that we did, I think that I enjoyed the seeing the Cubs play at Wrigley was the best!
One last thing...We did not have to take out a paper map one time during this trip! I downloaded Google Maps for my Blackberry and it worked wonderfully! I mean, All I had to do was search for the place that we were going and it gave me turn by turn directions and a map to go along with it. This was a life saver...especially during rush hour on Wednesday, but that is another post for another day!