So, Chicago. Jessy`s Review.

When people asked me how Chicago was, they were met with a grin spread across my face and a report of the amazing shopping, the interesting people watching, the beautiful weather, the fantastic exhibits at the art gallery, the unbelievable heights the basketball players reached with their jumps, the strangeness of "the bean", the delicious food, the amount of walking I managed to exhaust Andreas with, all of the running Andreas and Katrina managed over a week, the CUTE LITTLE ANIMALS AT THE ZOOOOO, and of course the wonderful planning and the great time we had with our lovely family, Chris and Katz!

We arrived in Chicago to beautiful smiling faces, a bit of a scary taxi drive, and a shocking -3 degrees; which after leaving the blazing sunshine in Zurich, was quite the shock!After bundling up and Chris and Katz took us on a lovely walk around a little part of Chicago, not missing "the bean" which is probably the most famous landmark in Chicago...obviously the picture taking began here! It really is quite a cool structure, and who really cares if it broke the estimated cost of $6 million by almost $17 million(!) It looks awesome!

If you're planning on visiting Chicago, take your walking shoes; not only is the city made for exploring by foot, the shops down "magnificant mile" alone will take you hours to walk through and peruse! I'd also advise to taking an empty suitcase, if you're anything like Andreas or I the amount of things you'll want to buy will make up for leaving everything at home! On Sunday Katz took us around Chicago's shopping highlights...my goodness! Needless to say we returned every day throughout the week to get "one last little thing" from our favourite shops!

It was a good job I walked and Andreas ran so much as the food was great. Of course we had the famous deep dish pizza, which has not been overrated! (take my advice, and don't eat anything for at least 5 hours before this! And please, please, don't forget your ID for beers unless your boyfriend is a superstar and will run back to the house and get it for you!) Mexican food, hot-dogs, sushi (not Anti...are you kidding?!), Ralph Lauren food, big America breakfasts., AMAZING mini-burgers..etc. But we also ate like kings in the house, with the Team making delicious breakfasts of pancakes, crepes, eggs, home made bread, fruit salad..and lots of other yummies. Not to mention the expertly made chilli and lasagna. If Katz wasn't doing so much running, I'm pretty sure she'd be the size of a house by now! Speaking of running, over the course of a week Andreas and Katz ran a total of 42km, with a nine mile (14.5k) run in just over an hour and a half on the last day to end the week in style. Such a great achievement!

We had a couple of great trips, we went to the zoo, the very very impressive art gallery, which alone was worth the nine hour flight, a cute little Swedish place for breakfast, the beach for a few minutes (far too windy to stay!), some really high building for awesome burgers and a equally awesome view of Chicago and Michigan Lake, but by far the highlight of the trips was our trip to watch the basketball. I'll leave this part to Andreas...

And that's our trip! I think that we managed to sucessfully complete 3 week worth of activity into 1 week thanks to the planning, and had the best time!
Thank you so much!

Chicago Goes Green on St. Patrick`s Day

It`s Spring, It`s Summer, It`s Busy

I have been feeling really guilty the past days for not blogging anything. Actually it is not totally my fault, because Jessy`s entry should be here to report on our wonderful week together with Anti and her. So I hope she will feel guilty, too, and send me this piece of writing. Here is a teaser:

Meanwhile, let me give you a quick update on how the things are in South Water Street, Chicago. It is warm outside, so warm that the spring seems to have skipped and we are in the middle of summer here. It was 28 degrees yesterday and the forecast does not promise anything much below that for the coming week. I am not a big fan of summer, I like spring, but I guess it is fair to say that this year`s winter in Chicago - the warmest in like the last hundred years - has already served as spring. We have been busy - Clerg had his second set of exams and is now on holidays but took a part-time position as my editor-in-chief. I can slowly see the light at the end of the tunnel with my thesis and this means there is a lot of text to be read and criticized and he is doing a great job there. But good times are coming, too - today we picked up the long lost son Miku at the airport and after the upcoming wild St. Patricks Day in Chicago together, we are to have a re-union with Riin and O`Neal in Edmonton and a road trip in the Banff area national parks. This is also the reason we have not yet been able to pack our winter stuff, we are expecting a serious fallback to minus degrees. I promise to keep you updated with the green Chicago river tomorrow and of course inevitably, pics from my St. Patrick Day Race I will be running on Sunday.

Chicago Through A Special Lens

Clerg has been running wild in Chicago with a special rented lens on his camera. The results speak for themselves. I am glad the lens was with us only for a week and I am busy working at my desk, so I was almost not jealous at it at all... The images below should be a nice welcome to Anti and Jessy arriving on Saturday - can`t wait to share this love in our life with them. Chicago is beautiful.

How Pig`s Trotters and Pea Soup is Chicagoan

Don`t get me wrong, pig`s trotters and pea soup is not American, it`s pure Estonian, but today in Treasure Island in the Chicago Old Town, the most European Supermarket in America, I found fresh, cleaned green peas! And then I found smoked pig`s trotters! Clerg did look at them with a very scared look but I was so, so happy. I think the last time I had eaten a trotter was when my grandmother made them together with the pig`s ears. Yummy. And now I can make my own traditional Estonian Vastlapäev or Shrove Tuesday or Fasching menu: Pea Soup with Pig`s Trotters and Vastlakuklid, sweet lenten buns with whipped cream. I was happy that Clerg enjoyed the dinner, too, although he still would not touch the meat. Höissa vastlad!

I love that for the first time in my life, I feel really comfortable cooking. It has become sort of a hobby for both of us, especially with our weekly dinner parties at our place. We participated in a Thai cooking class last week and have purchased some nice extra sharp Japanese chef knives that Clerg is very fond of, and I am not afraid of any recipe any more. (Ruth, I have made Dampfnudle twice already, guet gäu).

I love that this year in Chicago I can do so many things the first time in my life. Before coming here I said I would love to learn how to cook well and finish my thesis and run a half marathon. Well, after a couple of Vastlakukkel here one simply must go for a run.

Roses are red...

I am such a sucker for all those holidays they have in the US. Back at home its either just fake or simply embarrassing most of the time but here - it is so much over the top it has become true and genuine! It is the home of pretentious glitter, Hallmark, asymmetrical rose bouquets and I love it all. So this morning we celebrated the all-red Valentine`s day with a fat american breakfast at Pauline`s in Andersonville. Here is to you all as I learnt in my English class circa twenty five years ago, when red was just a color of a certain flag:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Sugar is sweet

And so are you.

Hop, Skip and a Week

Uhh, we have been incredibly sociable. When adults get a year off their every-day duties and can spend instead of earning their keep, they turn back in development and behave like students again. After the Swiss party we had a spontaneous post Swiss party on Saturday evening in one of the Chicagoan famous steak houses. I cannot remember when I last ate juicy pieces of basically raw meat but they do know how to do them so we rolled back to bed just to wake up on Super Bowl Sunday and get ready again to an organized viewing of what seems to be the second biggest national holiday after Christmas in the country. A professor of the Law School had invited around 80 students to his humble 14-room Hyde Park apartment and although I had had my reservations about watching hours of football, Madonna and a cute waiter serving expensive Chardonnay made it all worth it.

Then our weekly dinner was on Wednesday, this time with the South American and Mexican friends, salmon lasagna and numerous bottles of red wine, and yesterday was Michael`s surprise birthday party in the students pub on the campus. Funny story - Doris wanted to have a shot of bourbon for her stomach ache and the barkeeper requested a doctor`s prescription for that. Apparently, hard liqueur can only be handed out on campus as a mixed drink.

In between those parties we managed to squeeze in another lunch in the Chicago Art Institute and this time, we concentrated on Modern American Art from 1900 onwards.

Below is a very cute sample of the American art during depression by Doris Lee, you know, going back to the family values and sorts.

Of course, there was Mr Hopper with his too famous Nighthawks...

and Grant Wood`s American Gothic that we all know from the Desperate Housewives

as well as Marc Chagall and the America Windows.

Clerg even accompanied me to a special exhibition of American textiles and although they smelled a bit, I found them absolutely beautiful.

Today it started to snow again, and we decided to skip the dinner and Art Walk in Pilsen Galleries that this international student group had organized and stayed at home instead. How sociable can one be, after all.