Fortunately we’ve been to Chicago a couple of times before and know the city pretty well. Therefore it didn’t matter too much that we didn’t see as much today as we had originally planned. Main reason was the weather: till early afternoon it rained out of buckets. First we checked out the Chicago Cultural Center, #1 destination for tourists, with Visitor Information, free internet, exhibitions, events and two marvelous domed halls with Tiffany glass and lamps.
On to the Santa Fe Building, where the Chicago Architecture Foundation not only offers very interesting (architectural) tours but also has a nice shop and a worth seeing city model. In the Art Museum, across the street, we especially love the contemporary art section in the New Wing (a great expansion by Renzo Piano), added to the historic building. Also, the paperweight collection and the miniature rooms in the basement are unique. Couldn’t elude the greek & roman antiquities, of course.
In Bucktown (which merges into Wicker Park) we went to our favorite (mostly second-hand) bookstore, Myopic Books, but confined ourselves to one single book and 15 minutes!!! Gentrification is obvious in this popular neighborhood, some old shops and restaurants are gone, new, fancy ones (partly chains) opened up. Found a great new donut shop (Stan’s Donuts) - with an enormous variety of this commodity. It serves Intelligentsia Coffee (very popular with the young & hip) for half the price it would have cost in Pasadena/L.A.
Walked Mag Mile afterwards, but only visited „900 North Michigan Shops“ at the end because we had received gift vouchers worth $ 50 each for that mall during the last tourism convention in Las Vegas. Boy, this was a mistake... First, it took us about 3/4 hour to notice that we won’t get much for $ 50 in these shops. Eventually we were lucky and found a reduced Ralph Lauren shirt and a sleepshirt at Bloomingdale's which would have fit the bill. But … at the cashier we were told that we need to redeem the voucher first at Visitor Services. Not Bloomingdale’s Visitor Services, but the Mall’s, meaning we had to walk criss-cross the mall. It took us another 20 min. to get a Gift Card in exchange for the voucher which we still needed to activate by making a phone call and telling them a couple of different numbers/passwords "for security reasons".
Back to Bloomies where the gift card worked after a couple of tries. Since we got some unexpected "special what-a-wonderful day 20% rebate" on our chosen items we had $ 14 left on the card and tried to buy some cosmetics in another store. They told us after some time-consuming calls that they don’t accept gift cards. Didn't give it another try. We really deserved our cocktails and appetizers in the hotel afterwards for all the patience we mustered today. Now we do own a single piece of Ralph Lauren each, for regular prices we would never have paid otherwise („Made in China“).
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