Lots to see and do in Chicago

I must admit that I have abandoned the blog for a while.  At the moment I officially have a lot of free time, but I find myself more busy than ever.  Summer is here and Chicago starts waking up.  Like the water which is now pumping into the fountains, (in winter they’re switched off), it seems that air has suddenly been breathed into the City’s lungs, giving it a new life.  All over the city, the number of activities and things to do have suddenly exploded.  Being here I obviously want to experience and enjoy the most of it.  Summer in this wonderful city, with the beautiful weather, promises to be a busy summer full of fun.   Everyday I’m also waking up to the smell of nice flowers of different kinds which are blooming, filling the air with a pleasant scent.  Thus you understand that it is quite difficult for me to sit down and write down this blog.  Still, here I am, and I will try to make two entries this week.

Downtown 

In this mood I ventured a bit downtown, looking for some interesting spaces.  (I'm no longer living there, remember?, but I'm really missing it...)  

Anyway, I want to share with you, the facade of this building which I came across.  

I’ve been told that it was designed in this way to look like a car, because it is a multi-storey parking area.  Could it be that the designers took the motto 'Form follows function" a little bit too literally?   

I also came across this very nice plaza with some nice sculptures.  This space in the middle of the bustling city is very serene, and its ideal for relaxing during your lunch break.  This space is very near to Millenium Park, mostly renown for the bean.  More about this later on though.

NATO Summit

Last week there was the NATO summit in the city.  There was a lot of anticipation for it, and everyone was speaking of it, as if a civil war was about to erupt in the city.  Thankfully though it was very calm, and I’ve encountered no problems whatsoever.  There was an increased police presence, and I know that there were some protests too, but I didn’t come across any.  It seems that many chose to stay indoors, and in fact the streets were almost deserted.  Needless to say, the actual summit was held quite far from the centre of the city, and I wouldn’t have even imagined of stumbling into Obama, or Angela Merkel, although apparently some dignitaries were staying in some of the hotels downtown.

Worst Eating Out experience 

Anyway with Nato over, I was invited to go to a Comedy show, which wasn’t so humorous after all.  However after the show, we were very hungry and decided to go to a nearby restaurant.  What happened here, was a first, and definitely will make this a night to remember.  For the first time in my life, I was eating at a place in which half way through I’ve been asked to leave.  We weren’t doing anything bad, it’s just that the restaurant people wanted to close.  The restaurant (if you can call it a restaurant) is called Phillie’s Best, but honestly I think it was his worst.  If they wanted to close, they should have never taken our order in the first place.  Imagine yourself eating peacefully, and the staff comes to your table and tells you “We’re closing in 3 minutes”, and then switch off most of the lights.  I found it very rude and unprofessional.  I continued eating, but obviously the rest of the food didn’t go down that well.  To add insult to injury, we found a piece of tin foil in the sweet.  One of my friends was livid, and if we didn’t calm her down, we could have easily ended up on the news.  Probably my involvement would have given the news item international relevance, lol.

Anyway the manager’s response was quite baffling.  He didn’t care at all, and even when my friend complained, he himself kept going on with the shuting down procedure. 

Anyway moral of the story: Don’t go to Phillies’ best, Chicago!!