Chicagmas

The 20th of December is apparently the busiest travel day in Canada and the USA. I don't quite know what we were thinking when booking tickets to fly anywhere in North America during winter... Were we trying to outsmart the elements by trying to fly the 21st? Poor visibility in Chicago mean that our 7.21pm flight was cancelled. Our potentially stupid idea to head out to the airport anyway turned out to be rather lucky as we threw politely controlled hissy fits and got on an earlier flight due to depart at 6.20pm. Unfortunately this flight was delayed until 9pm roughly anyway. We later found out that our original re-allocation on a later flight (8am on the 22nd) would have seen us sitting at Ottawa International all day, and probably sleeping there for a ripping good Saturday night, as they shut down over 200 flights coming into Chicago due to bad weather... But we got there, all be it about midnight before we crawled into bed in the heart of the city, first lesson learnt.

Lets see, Saturday morning - the Saturday before Christmas, in a new and vibrant city. What else was there to do but stroll the Magnificent Mile with x-thousand other Chicagans. Our hotel was right in the thick of things so we wandered out for breakfast, past the Museum of Contemporary Art (those of you Ferris Bueller fans may recall) and straight up Michigan Avenue. It was foggy and cold, but at least it wasn't raining! And I think Coops did more shopping than me that day.

Sunday was a late start. With no real plans, breakfast was high on the agenda. Then I guess more wandering. The weather was continually uninspiring. I'm not normally one to go with the cliche's, but Chicago really was the windiest city I have ever come across. It was not that cold out, until you hit one of the wind tunnels between the towering buildings and then it was chilling to the bone. At one point I did not use my God-given internal muscular-skeletal system to hold me up, but relied heavily on the constant force of the wind to maintain my upright posture.

We eventually made our way to the Christmas markets, full of Christmas goodies, but it was only the warming properties of the German Gluwein mulled wine that tempted me. Well, that and the souvenir booty they served it in. Incidentally the market was just outside the Earnest Wacker Building. Name not ringing a bell? It was the 'hup, hup, hup' building the Feds scaled in the Blues Brothers movie. Later we were to stroll Wacker Drive where the infamous brothers screamed down just before crashing through the mall that we were later not to find...

I was anxious to get up to the John Hancock Centre where you could head up to the 96th floor bar for a drink and a free view of the city, just 7 floors less than the famous view from the Sears tower to check whether visibility was worth the $14.95 admission to the Sears Skydeck which is crazily one of those 'must see' things to do in Chicago. Unfortunately such logic did not win out against a relatively short time frame vs luck with weather equation, and the subsequent cloudy view was disappointing to say the least.

Although, I gotta say, from the streets, the fog was kinda cool. You couldn't tell how high the buildings actually were. And it seemed to suit the city. The trees were bare, but tinkling with the fairy lights tangled throughout their branches. There were a few patches of snow, but alas it was not to be the white Christmas we had hoped for. It was enough knowing that I had left a white Christmas back in Ottawa. After the disappointing view from the Sears tower the fog cleared up slightly, and we headed for the Hancock Centre anyway, where we got a slightly better view:

The John Hancock Centre: view from the street and 96th floor bar - not on the same day...

On Christmas Eve we encountered the most curious squirrel I think I have ever seen. It ran from its tree about 5m away (usually the closest you can get to the jumpy little fellas) to about 1m in front of us. For a brief moment I was haunted by the story of a friend of mine who told me that a squirrel once ran up their leg, and may or may not potentially be infected with some crazy banquet of germs that I would rather not have been recalling at the time, and was getting prepared to impersonate something I hoped would scare the acorns out of him.

Navy Pier, another of those 'must see' spots that isn't really a must see now that its over run with cheap souvenir dispensers and fast food chains, was a brisk walk through Millennium Park, past the frozen foreshore of Lake Michigan:

A cheeky pose for a photo, and we were headed back in the direction of the Magnificent Mile. Being Christmas eve, we headed in the direction of merriment in refreshment form. Most places had closed for the holiday, so we ended up with a small stash of Christmas ale back at the hotel room. There was no fridge, but the temperature outside was cold enough to store it outside the window, albeit with an amusing retrieval system requiring a delicate balancing act between enthusiastic reach, bum up in the air and flailing feet on a flimsy window frame.

Christmas day was a magnificent gastronomical feast at the Hilton's restaurant. I started with slivers of smoked salmon and trout, succulent prawn, four flavours of caviar, and some cleansing salad. Second course was roast haddock, Cock Du Vin, roast lamb, Al gratin potatoes and roast vegetables. Third course possibly involved roast beef and other treats, possibly starting to be masked by my bottomless champagne, then there was individual desserts; tantalising trifle, cookies and cream pudding, tri-color and flavour jelly, creme brule and some cheese crammed into the last remaining gaps. It was a truly great meal, but alas, it didn't feel like Christmas - I had far to many layers of clothes on.

Someone suggested a nice, long, digesting walk after our gorging session. It was not as quiet on the streets as I had expected. Unfortunately Chicago is one of those cities that has a high number of homeless folk. We headed out past one soul who was clearly trying to drown his Christmas sorrows, and on the way back found him lying in a pool of vomit, surrounded by a group of people keeping him awake by singing carols - hopefully waiting for help. It makes you feel pretty lucky; even though I'm thousands of miles from home, I still get to spend it with friends with plenty of food and a warm place to sleep at the end of the day, and a controlled amount of beer outside the window.

Thankfully by Boxing day (which is curiously not recognised in the States) all air traffic had returned to normal, so we flew out without incident. Back in Ottawa there was still plenty of snow, which boded well for the next chapter of our holiday.