Arriving in Chicago (part two!)

Well since I dozed off while writing my blog entry last night, here's the continuation of my first few days in Chicago. Enjoy!



Monday

On Monday morning Dad and I decided to venture into Chicago. I stayed at his hotel to make things easier in the morning so we got a relatively early start. Well, so I thought at least.... between searching for a place to buy the El passes and general debating, we didn't end up getting on the way until 10:30-11. We walked from Dominican's main campus to their Priory campus which is roughly 8 blocks east. From there we caught a bus to go to the El station which was less than a mile away, but still a hefty walk. The Green Line is extremely convenient to Dominican, so we took that into town with our destination being Shedd Aquarium.

The transportation was SUPER easy and I actually really enjoyed it. It was nice to see things and to be out of a car for what seemed like the first time in a week. We got to see the diversity of neighborhoods in the SW suburbs and even passed the stadium where the Chicago Bulls play. Once in town we hopped off at our stop and began walking to the aquarium, grabbing lunch along the way. For some reason the weather wasn't liking us and for the second day in a row, it was FREEZING. I'm talking 45-55 degrees with the wind blowing. Needless to say, Chicago lived up to its reputation as the Windy City. It only got worse as we approached the lake, but it made going inside a great relief. The city is pretty and the aquarium is right on the lakefront which gave us a spectacular view, but I was so anxious to get into the warmth.

Shedd Aquarium is nice but nowhere close to the caliber of the Georgia Aquarium or the National Aquarium in Baltimore (I've been spoiled with those places). They had your typical local themed exhibits taking you from the shallows to the (in this case) lake as well as your now requisite "Finding Nemo" tropical exhibit. The most surprising thing to me is the lack of sharks. They only had maybe 3 species? I'm not sure, but I was NOT impressed with that aspect. However what they lacked in sharks, they made up with my favorites: cetaceans. For those of you who don’t speak Marine Bio nerd fluently, that’s marine mammals. They had otters, a seal, pacific dolphins, and (my new favorite thanks to the Georgia Aquarium) BELUGAS! I geeked out I know, but it’s only because no matter how much I love student affairs, there will always be a part of me that will always want to be a Cetaceanist.

But anyway I think we spent as much time with the dolphins and belugas as the rest of the aquarium. We got to the exhibits right after the “Fantasea” dolphin & more show ended so the pools were accessible to look at. Unlike many aquariums we could stand at the rails looking into the pool and see the animals which were neat. The (three) dolphins were next to the (four) belugas and when we first got there, dad and I were some of the only people there. The belugas were amazing and very playful. One of them actually popped his head out of the water right where I was, spit a little water at me then sang. It was so cool! The dolphins were less entertaining. The Pacific dolphins are SUPER fast but not as social or show-offy as the Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins we’re mostly used to. They instead of paying attention to those watching them were racing around their tank chasing each other. I haven’t seen that species since years ago when we visited the now gone Sea World Ohio, so it was cool to see them.

After killing another hour walking around outside of the aquarium, it was time for dad and I to go see the “Fantasea” show. It was, in a word, odd. Not your typical dolphin show by any means. In fact they said at the very beginning that they no longer believed in providing the traditional educational shows like other aquariums, instead this “show” was going to be more like a stage show. Weird, and not very good. The premise was that this little girl found a charm that transports her to the lands of these fairies that represent the animals the show would feature: Sea Lions, Penguins, Belugas, and Pacific White-Sided Dolphins. At each “location” the animals were “showcased”, meaning they were in the main pool or walking around in front of the audience (penguins). They were each doing their own “natural behaviors” for the crowd, which apparently each animal’s natural behavior is just eating fish from their trainers. Add odd costumes, cross dressing trainers (I don’t think we were supposed to notice that one of the fairies was a guy), and stage lights and you have “Fantasea” and a bewildered April and Dad. Give me NAIB’s same old dolphin show any day. I would have rather watched Chesapeake jump repeatedly for her orange buoy over and over again for those 30 minutes.

After the Aquarium Dad and I searched for where to pick up the Double Decker bus tour we had tickets for. IT was a hop-on-hop-off pass, but because the aquarium took so long and we got off to a later start in the morning, it ended up being a straight up tour. This tour, which I will apparently be an expert at after the summer since the orientations each go on it (6 times!), went through all the major parts of Chicago and was guided by professional guides. Because of the cold and the drizzling that was beginning, Dad and I didn’t get the full experience and sat on the lower level, but it was still entertaining. We only got off once at Navy Pier where we walked around and took a break. We followed the tour an entire loop then decided to stop again at Navy Pier for dinner. We ate at an Italian place and grabbed some Garrett’s Chicago mix popcorn (Cheddar and Caramel mixed- yum!) before making our way back to Dominican via public transit.



I decided to stay at Dominican Monday night and dad went back to his hotel.



Tuesday

On Tuesday morning Dad picked me up at Dominican and we went to Oak Park to take a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio. They weren’t super busy so our 45 minute tour turned into 1 ½ hours, but Dad loved it so I was happy too. The house and studio were really neat and it was very interesting to see how every minute detail was meticulously planned out by Wright. Definitely not to the caliber of some of his more famous works, but since Wright lived and worked in Oak Park in the beginning half of his career, it was interesting to see his evolution as a creative. Many of the houses in the area were designed by him or inspired by him so it was also good to get a context to everything I see nearly daily.



After the tour Dad and I grabbed lunch then met Norah, my summer supervisor, before I took him to the airport. I wondered around Target after leaving him then called it an early night since my internship would begin early the next morning.



It was a great few days with Dad. I don’t remember a time when it has ever been just the two of us, especially not for more than a day. I hated dropping him off not so much because of how I’d miss him, but because it meant that my “summer vacation” was over and it would be months before seeing my family again. Leaving is always the hardest part.