Chicago!

Proving that I'm never to old to travel with my family....The Mother and I just came back from a brief trip to Chicago. It was my first time there, and I really liked it! The architecture is just breathtaking...but I'm aware that I sound like a dilettante, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
One of these days I need to bring a photographer along with me on my trips because my pictures are not doing this city any justice. Here are some pretty sculptures (The Picasso, Miro's Chicago and Cloud Gate).
But for all of Chicago's beauty, it has a dark side, with high rates of poverty and crime.
Our hotel was in the Magnificent Mile, and though we enjoyed it, we were also anxious to get out and see other areas. I was tempted to go to Bronzeville in the South Side, especially because our trusty Lonely Planet said that one should go with a friend during the day (and what about at night?).

But in the end, we decided to visit Pilsen, which has been the first stop of Chicago's immigrants for 100+ years. It's now mainly a Hispanic area but traces of their predecessors remain because the buildings are characteristically Central European. We also went out for Mexican food -- I had cactus! And it was only $2. I've never really had Mexican food because of all the cheese and meat, so this was an experience. I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to pick it up and eat it, or use my knife and fork. Similarly, the waitress and cooks weren't used to tourists, especially so they spent the whole time laughing at us. It was lots of fun.
And despite what it said on the news, the weather was fine. There was no flooding in our area, no tornadoes or power-outages. The only real exposure we had to the storm was on our way back from the Art Institute of Chicago on Thursday night. And we did the only sensible thing that someone can do in bad weather -- we went back to our hotel and opened a bottle of wine.