A Week In The Windy City

Chicago is an amazing city!

I've been to only two other American cities excluding Chicago; San Antonio and Kansas City, and I only really got to experience San Antonio which is also an amazing tourist destination in case you are looking for somewhere to go.

Well, traveling by bus was a little uncomfortable at times unless you are a midget and can lay down comfortably across two seats and you are looking at about 18 hours or so to get to Chicago, but we did not do the trek all at once and stayed in Minnesota near the Mall of America which is gigantic and worth checking out just to say you have been there.

Coming from Winnipeg I can attest to the size of Chicago. What impressed me was all the skyscrapers both old and new which gives the city character. With city pass in hand, I visited The Field Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, and Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) and briefly the Shedd Aquarium.

With the exception of the Willis Tower and Shedd Aquarium, prepare to do a lot of walking in the art institute and museum and if you dare to see it all, leave to get there right when they open!

The Navy Pier is a great family friendly destination and Michigan Avenue, also known as the Magnificent Mile, boasts familiar and high end shops that I dared not enter.

We stayed in the heart of downtown and even though I walked, there are cabs, buses, and I believe they are called trams available to get around. Oh yeah, check out the giant fountain, the name of which I can't recall at this moment, situated in a nice green space near Lake Michigan.

If food is what you like then prepare to fall in love with a continental buffet of choices. I saw many  restaurants to go with the usual fast food suspects in the downtown, but the mouthwatering smell of steaks, curry, and deep dish pizza (tried it, amazing!) will leave you bedazzled as to what to try first.

Plenty of clubs serve up music and drinks and Timothy O'Tooles is great and you have to experience blues in Chicago so check out Buddy Guy's Blues Bar.

My classmates, instructors, and I got a tour of GolinHarris, an internationally renowned PR agency with clients like Toyota and McDonalds.

Overall I would have to say that Chicago offers a little bit of something for everyone. There are enough family friendly and adult destinations to keep anyone entertained.

I would move to Chicago just for the city itself and what if offers to you in terms of entertainment and recreation.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to write a blues song about my trip to Chicago .......

Harperville in Canada .....

We need to ride the Conservatives like there is no tomorrow!

I personally think Harper is smug and unwilling to admit that he and certain members of his party have either broken campaign promises (taxing income trusts anyone?), misled the house and public, cut taxes via cuts to social programs while spending up a storm on anachronistic G20 summits, fighter planes, prisons, and employing ideology in place of impartial cold hard facts to justify his 'you won't recognize Canada when I'm through with it' agenda.

And by the way, if it was the Liberals or the NDP causing the same piles of shit, I would be just as critical of them as well.

We need to take democracy away from the artificial people that are corporations and government to paraphrase Raj Patel. Corporations and the government do not, and I believe cannot logistically and fully represent the people in the neighborhood.