Michel Plays Tourist For His Birthday in the Windy City

On the morning of the 28th day of September in the year of our Lord 2013, the world collectively held its breath and then released a sigh of relief as the eyes of the most glorious creature known on earth opened his eyes, thus beginning his 28th year.  That's right, Michel Bigelow turned 28, and for his birthday, he decided to be a tourist in his new home of Chicago, showing his parents the wondrous sites of this fair city.

The weekend actually began on Thursday with his parents' arrival at O'Hare Airport.  After the usual happy greetings, they began the whirlwind of sights and sounds and tastes that is Chicago.  Here are Michel and Elizabeth's thoughts on some of the highlights of the weekend.
 

Lincoln Square
E:  We love the square.  Every time we go, we discover something new.  On this trip with Timi, Michel's mom, we discovered the meat mecca that is Gene's Sausage Shop.  It is a German-style butcher and specialty store and is all the way wonderful!

M:  Gene's is more than a meat Mecca.  In addition to its vast selection of meats and cheeses, Gene's has wide selection of beers, wines, and pickles and whole pies for $7.00.  There can be no nobler calling than providing humanity with inexpensive pie.

E:  We will now show you the glory of Gene's in pictures...lot's of pictures.

The Art Institute, the Bean, and Auditorium Theatre
E: While Michel was in class on Thursday, his parents and I headed to the Art Institute for their Open Late Thursdays.  We rode the train down and made it 45 minutes before closing.  Just enough time to see quite a bit of the truly amazing Impressionism permanent exhibit.  I love the Art Institute, recently voted one of the top museums in America, and it was really fun to experience it so late in the evening with fewer people crowding around the paintings.

After the museum closed, we still had about half an hour to kill before Michel was done with class, so we headed over to Cloud Gate, affectionately known as "The Bean".  It is literally a giant, mirrored bean.  It is awesome.

Finally, we headed over to the Auditorium Theatre building at Roosevelt, home of the historic Auditorium Theatre, where Michel has his classes.  Though we were unable to get into the theatre, the lobby of the classroom building is quite beautiful.  Not a bad place to wait for Michel to get out of class!

M:  I was in class at this point, but had I been present, they no doubt would have kept the museum open for as long as we wanted.


Magnificent Mile
E:  So the first time we came to Chicago together was last summer, and the first thing we did was walk the Mag Mile.  This northern part of Michigan Avenue is a bustling shopper's paradise, and we had a great time.  This time was still fun, but I've got to say, if you don't have a purpose, it's just walking up and down a big street with nice stores.  However, I am looking forward to the Festival of Lights in November...should be a lovely start to the holiday season!

M:  Walking down the Magnificent Mile gives one a "Gee whiz! I'm in a big city!" type feeling, but otherwise, like Elizabeth said, it's a big street with nice stores.  That being said, as far as big streets with nice stores go, Chicago's is pretty nice.


State Street Macy's
E:  I LOVE this store!  It's a 9 story, old-style department store full of all sorts of wonderful goodness.  It is the original Marshal Fields building, and they have done a beautiful job of maintaining the original architecture and decor, including the Tiffany's ceiling.  Plus the 7th floor food court is a hidden gem of a delicious food paradise!  Let me tell you, this is the place to get some of that amazing food by Rick Bayless and Marcus Samuelson without paying top dollar prices.  I cannot wait to see this store decked out for the holidays!

M:  The State Street Macy's is a gorgeous building with the best food I've ever eaten in a department store.  Not being a huge shopper, I don't know if I could happily spend an entire day there, but it's a neat place to visit and a great place for lunch.  It also looks really easy to fall to one's death from either of the double atria.


Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
E:  So this is a really great museum...if you like contemporary art.  I try to like contemporary art, but most of the time, I'm just irritated by it.  That was the case today.  We saw a photography exhibit, which I actually liked until they started showing photos of photos that the artist claimed were his own work (but weren't), an exhibit based on the home, and a exhibit based on cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Chicago native and creator of Ghost World).  A lot of it was just weird.  However, be sure to ask me about my new installation involving a sound proof room, a clap-on/clap-off lamp, and me sitting in the dark.  It is a biting social commentary, and I'm sure the museum will approve it soon.

M:  Contemporary Art is interesting because if something is new, it's difficult to tell if it is brilliant and ahead of its time or asinine and forgettable.  Such is the crap shoot of visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art.  I did quite enjoy the Daniel Clowes exhibit.  Even if we hadn't gotten in for free, his collection would have been worth the price of admission.


John Hancock Building Observatory
E:  Ok, super touristy, but still super fun!  They take your group picture before you even get on the elevator to the observation deck.  The deck is all inside (no falling or jumping from this building, let me tell you), and there is a nice-looking cafe and some cool exhibits up there as well.  But, of course, you go for the views.  They are spectacular!  We could even see our neighborhood, though we were not able to identify our building, sadly. 

M:  We did this on a lark and were glad to have done so.  Though perhaps not as high up as the Willis (Sears) Tower, the John Hancock Building is fairly central and offers great views of Chicago.  I was disappointed to discover that there is no Firemen's Pole one can take back down to the ground floor.  Just a boring elevator.  Lame.

Chicago History Museum and Gift Shop
E:  Our last stop of the day, and we only got 20 minutes in the museum because we did not realize that it closes at 4:30 on Saturdays!  Fortunately, all of our museum visits were a part of the Smithsonian's National Museum Day and so were free.  (Thanks for the tip, Stephen!)  Charlotte and Craig got married here last summer, and it is a gorgeous place to hold a wedding and a super fun museum.  So far we have now visited the Chicago history section twice, but I am definitely looking forward to seeing the rest!  Thankfully they did not kick us out of the gift shop until 5, and the gift shop is almost as fun as the museum.

M:  I love this museum.  It gives a comprehensive history of the city and doesn't shy away from the less savory aspects thereof.  Plus, any museum that lets one sit in an antique train engine is tops in my book.

Fork
E:  Oh, I love Fork!  Fork will probably get its own full post sometime soon.  This is where Charlotte and Craig had their rehearsal dinner, and I remembered having a great time.  However, I didn't remember much about the food.  It's just down the street, though, and Michel decided that it was a perfect birthday dinner place.  And he was right.  It has a fun, hip atmosphere, an extensive wine and beer list, the most flavorful mushroom and rosemary flatbread ever, and hot, melty, sharp, happy delicious mac n' cheese.  And that is just what I ate.  Everyone else was just as satisfied.  At least, I hope they were because Fork is definitely up there on my list now! 

M:  Much like Fountainhead, Fork has a booze binder with, among other things, a genuinely impressive beer selection (not quite as extensive as Fountainhead, but still great).  They also have a rotating selection of sliders that, on this trip, included lamb sausage, beef short rib, and pork belly.  The pork belly was good, but a little dry.  The lamb sausage and beef short rib sliders were outstanding.  I also got garlic cilantro fries that were near Bernie's Burger Bus level delicious.  It was a spectacular birthday feast.

 Walking along the beach

Michel's official birthday picture

Once, Twice, Three Times a Blog Post

Well, actually, just once a blog post about two trips to the theatre. 

Last week, we had the good fortune to go to our first downtown theatre district show!  For Michel's birthday, I had gotten him tickets to Once, the musical based on the movie of the same name featuring the Oscar-winning song, "Falling Slowly".  I had been waiting for this for over a month, and finally Tuesday arrived.  It was a big deal for us.  First theatre district show, first time getting dressed up since we moved, first big "date" night downtown.  We started with dinner at Troquet, a cute little French bistro about 5 blocks from our apartment.  It was a gorgeous night for the short walk to the restaurant...until we realized that we had both left our train passes and ID's at home.  (Well, when you are changing purses, sometimes things get left out!  I have no idea what Michel's excuse was.)  Our short walk turned into a much longer hike, but we finally made it to Troquet.  It was comfort food on special for the night, so it was a veggie croque monsieur with spinach, brie, and carmelized onions and sausage poutine for us.  Lest we blow our calories all in one place, we got cupcakes, including a Bluth Banana cupcake, at the cupcake food truck right outside the bistro for dessert.  Meh.  They were fine.  The best thing about the truck was its clever homage to Arrested Development, but, man, was it nice food trucking again!  While we have many wonderful restaurants here in Chicago, food trucking does not quite seem to have caught on here the way it has in Houston or Austin.  We miss them.  And honestly, food trucks are often as good and sometimes better than sit down restaurants.  Plus there is the thrill of the search, tracking your favorite truck's Twitter and facebook feeds, finally locating them in some weird part of town, and then enjoying your favorite item from their menu.  Or the joy of the HEB food truck court (Montrose Market HEB, for all you Houston food truck lovers who haven't yet been to the food truck Mecca that is the HEB parking lot the first Friday of every month).  But I digress.

After an unusually fast and rather terrifying train ride through the night, we headed to the historic Oriental Theatre on Randolph Street.

The Oriental Theatre (or Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, as it is known today---yes, Ford the car company not Ford's Theatre of Lincoln's assassination) was built in 1926 as a movie palace on the site of the former Iroquois Theatre that burned down in a 1903 fire.  The Oriental was one of many movie theatres built in the '20's, but patronage began to decline in the 1960's.  Finally, it closed in 1981 for more than a decade.  The theatre was restored and reopened as a performance venue in 1998, sparking the resurgence of the downtown Chicago theatre district.

All of that is fascinating to you, I'm sure, but the main thing is the interior of this theatre.  It is spectacular!  It totally reflects all of the stereotypes engendered by early 20th century orientalism, but that doesn't really matter.  It is one of the most intricately designed, gorgeous theatres I've ever been in!

Lobby

Lobby

Lobby Ceiling 

Interior of the theatre

Truly spectacular.  Now I did take a picture of the stage, despite instructions against photography, but it didn't really come out, and I don't want to get in trouble with whatever theatre set copyright police might read this blog.  However, the set of Once is a working bar.  Super cool, right?  Audience members can actually go up on stage before and after the show and during intermission for drinks.  Sadly, we were high enough up in the theatre that it would take too long to get down there and back to our seats.  But what was really lovely is that the simplicity and rustic nature of the set complemented the ostentatious nature of the theatre beautifully and in a way that really placed the focus on the stage.  It was coincidental, I'm sure, but it was a really neat effect.

As for the show itself, we both loved it.  It is quite true to the film and makes for a wonderfully unique piece of theatre.  It's a blessed relief from the plethora of jukebox musicals crowding Broadway these days, and it is unlike anything I've ever seen.  The show opens with most of the actors on stage, at least 15 to 20 minutes before the official start time, essentially having a jam session of traditional Irish and Czech music.  The party melds seamlessly into the opening of the show, so you almost don't realize that the show has officially started. The music, composed by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, is hauntingly beautiful, much of it coming from the film, and the actors all play their own instruments, along the lines of the recent revivals of Company and Sweeny Todd.  The show is about an Irish busker and a Czech flower seller and pianist.  The girl pushes and encourages the guy to pursue his dreams of a music career and win back his girlfriend, for whom all of his songs are written.  The girl helps the guy write more music and record a demo, and in the process they fall in love.  The end of the show left me completely breathless.  For me, it was one of those truly special, revelatory theatre experiences.  Both Michel's and my only complaint was that the excess choreographed movement was frequently distracting and unnecessary, but the Act I finale, where the entire cast dances with their instruments as the Guy sings, was a spectacular piece of theatre.  It was a perfect evening, and we cannot recommend Once highly enough.  (Houston peeps, it's coming to you soon!)

I actually had the opportunity to attend the theatre twice last week.  My friend Debbie, with whom I taught at Kinkaid, was in town to see her daughter, Lee, perform in a play.  Debbie graciously invited me to a wonderful dinner at Bella Notte on the west side (delicious Italian, highly recommend!  Particularly the seafood salad, tortiglioni carbonata, and the flourless chocolate cake) and then to Lee's show, The Goddess by Paddy Chayefsky, at the Artistic Home Theatre.  The show is an adaptation by the show's director, John Mossman, of the 1958 film of the same name.  It is about a young, troubled girl who heads to Hollywood in search of fame, attention, adoration, and love and explores the dark and dangerous side of fame, Hollywood, and excess.  So it's not the feel-good-story-of-the-year.  However, it was an excellent production in a tiny space that made ingenious use of gorgeous, vintage costumes as indicators of time and scene transitions.  And Lee was a tour de force.  I highly recommend checking out The Goddess, which runs Thursdays through Sundays through November 17.

Needless to say, I felt very theatrically cultured last week!  Next up may just be a Chicago Lyric Opera performance!

Elizabeth Conquers the Maize Maze

First of all, apologies for the short hiatus in our blog posting.  Michel has not had time to finish his birthday post, so I finally decided to keep posting without it.  I know he has a ton of school work, but it's all about priorities. 

SO!  Here we are, three weeks into October, and fall has finally decided to come to Chicago.  Yesterday and today it has been rainy, dreary, and in the 50's, and our apartment has been wonderfully cozy with the radiators occasionally sputtering and clanking to life.  And that, my friends, is a terrifying thing, especially when you've never dealt with an old-fashioned radiator in your life and even more especially when they clamor and hiss to life at 5 in the morning.  It sounds like the infantry is trying to shoot up the apartment.

But I digress.

Before the coming of fall, Michel and I headed up to the suburbs of Madison, Wisconsin to visit my cousin and guest blogger, Stephen.  Stephen lives in a gorgeous little community with gently rolling hills, trees displaying their riotous fall colors, charming farms and red barns, the most beautiful drive to work you've ever seen in your life, and corn.  Endless seas of corn.  And corn was, in fact, was my main purpose in being here.  (Although Stephen's house is a pretty great place to watch UT beat-the-hell-outta OU last weekend!)  You see, I had come to engage in that most Midwestern of fall activities: the corn maze.  Or Maize Maze, as we like to call it.  (Clever, right?  No one's ever thought to call it that before, I'm sure.)

Stephen chose a delightful little farm called Schuster's Farm in Deerfield, Wisconsin.  It's a farm full of good, wholesome, Midwestern family fun including a pumpkin patch, baked apple goods and homemade fudge, apple cider, a petting zoo, and, of course, a corn maze. 

 

Michel and Stephen were inexplicably low key at the prospect of traversing Schuster's Farm's epic corn maze.  I, on the other hand, was giddy with excitement.

The maze is in two phases: Phase 1 and Phase 2.  As we prepared to enter Phase 1, we overheard the ticket girl tell another maze goer that it would take about an hour to complete the maze.  Ha!  We were prepared to do it in much less time due to our top-notch directional skills and superior knowledge of corn.  And no, of course we didn't need a map!  We don't rely on such crutches.  (Actually, we didn't know there was a map until we were too far into the maze to go back, but that doesn't make for a very good story.)  So of we went, three gallant maze goers, determined to conquer the Maize Maze!

This is where we entered.

The corn was tall.

 Taller than Stephen.  And, unlike Michel, Stephen is very tall.

The corn was real!!!  Just in case you didn't know.  

We flew through Phase 1, keeping track of our progress by these cute little progress signs and pausing only to solve the terrible "Corn-nundrums" posted throughout the maze.  As if we needed additional entertainment during our trek!

After a few short minutes, we reached a platform.  I assume the platform is designed to grant some relief after being down in the maze for so long.  For us, it showed that our directional instincts had not yet failed us, and we were close to completing Phase 1!  Plus it offered some pretty gorgeous views of the surrounding...corn.

On the platform!  It is hard to take a selfie with all three of us, but we had to document the accomplishment.

Schuster's Farm

We decided to go that way.  And we were correct.

After only 15 minutes, success!  I had successfully led the men through the corn maze!  An hour, please.  Since Phase 1 only took 15 minutes, surely we'd be through Phase 2 in 20.

Boy, was I wrong.  It took forever.  We kept wandering in circles, retracing our steps.  How could we tell we were retracing steps,  you ask?  It's a corn field after all.  Oh, after a while, you know.  You just know.  Every time I chose a direction at a fork or led us down a corn hallway, fully expecting two creepy little girls with long, dark, stringy hair and white dresses to appear out of nowhere at the end of the row, we ended up in a dead end or lost.  We eventually made it to the second platform, but even that was not enough.  And yes, our egos so inflated by our earlier corn maze victory, we had again declined the option of a map, this time knowing full well of the existence of said maps.

There was a lot of corn.

At one point we found the edge of the maze...but it was not the exit.

Finally, after weeks of wandering, slowly being driven mad by the increasingly narrower paths that created the head of University of Wisconsin Coach Anderson and about to die of thirst and starvation, Stephen heroically identified the correct path and led us out of there.

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, I conquered the maize maze!  I survived!  I am the greatest corn maze solver that ever lived!  Well, ok, fine, Michel and Stephen conquered the corn maze, too.  Or, to be accurate, Stephen and Michel conquered the corn maze while I mostly followed, increasingly convinced that no one knew what they were doing and we were going to spend the night in the maze. And we were in Phase 2 for about 45 minutes, so, yeah, the maze only took about an hour.  But!  We still did it.  And so we adjourned to the store for apple crisp and hot cider.

My verdict?  Eh, I don't need to make going to a corn maze a fall tradition, but for a girl from Houston experiencing her first real autumn with the accompanying activities, it was pretty fun!