Lena finally made it to Chicago – in September instead of July, and it turned sharply cold, and we could not go to the beach. Still, our interests are so much aligned that we made it an absolutely perfect weekend.
Lena arrived on Friday evening and met with her Chicago-based coworkers. We chatted for a bit before and drafted the plan of activities.
Saturday was chilly, and since Lena uses each of her Chicago visits as an occasion to dress nicely, and I am happy to join her, we ended up being dressed not precisely to the weather, and were moderately cold most of the time :).
We started the day in the Field Museum, and I was able to properly see all the exhibits (and the recent updates to the “Evolving Planet,” which Lena didn’t see yet).
Then, we stopped at the Printers Row Lit Fest. Well, you can’t really “stop” there; you need to spend several hours, and doing anything else is just teasing yourself.
Next stop was the Art Institute, where we started with a late lunch.
First, we went to the Gustave Caillebotte exhibit – it was the third time for me, and I am going to write a separate post about it.
Also, Lena wanted to see the European Design exhibit, which was surprisingly interesting.
Then we stopped at the Lurie Garden
Next stop was Acanto:
and we ended the evening at the Goodman Theater
The play (Ashland Avenue) was great. I do not know whether I will have time to write a post about it, but it’s a really-really great playwriting, something I haven’t experienced for a while. And it’s deeply “Chicagoan”. It was very late when we got home, so in the morning, I went biking without Lena.
After I was back, we continued with our plan.
We visited my mom and went for a walk with her, and I finally saw the Artists of the Wall 2025.
Almost perfect, everything minus the beach :), but there will be next summer!
Hettie's Reflections 