Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Another Adventure in Chi town

My friend Beck and I don't get out as often as we would like but we did take an excursion on the metra last month for her belated birthday.

First stop French Market All these years of riding the metra and I had no idea this market was even connected to the train station. It's because when I go downtown, I get off the train and head east not north so what a fun find.

We had lunch then sampled. I know, I know, backwards, but it was our first time so now we know. The other cool thing is you can get on the metra from this cute French market instead of going all the way around. Yes I'm so excited to avoid the crowds from here on out. Like my secret lil passage way.

15 minute walk down LaSalle and we were at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on the right.
The building in front is the Chicago Board of Trade



I've been here how long?
Never knew about this FREE money museum. (Thanks Sam and Haley)
We even came home with a bag of money -- shredded of course.
Interesting, educational and no one goes here. Not sure why. I loved it.

Ok so here's my Cliff Claven tidbit.
Why is a thousand dollars called a GRAND?


Don't those zero's look like watermelons? They called it the GRAND Watermelon bill, then shortened it to just Grand. Bet you didn't know that? 1890 trivia

Million bucks under glass. For some reason I was afraid to touch the globe, fearing I'd be Lazered Tazered I guess.

Grabbed our free bag of shredded loot and headed across the street to the Chicago Board of Trade. A pic I snagged from Wikipedia. We weren't really there at night. It's quite the building with a great history - another time.
I have a candle customer who's husband is a commodity broker and he was going to hook us up with his guy in the yellow vest to give us a tour and see the "pit" but dang coppers wouldn't let nobody in - day after Chicago elections and security was tight. Really?

Headed towards the lake to the Art Institute of Chicago My membership is good till Feb, so gotta use it while I can.
The grand staircase was new and lit up so we had to have a photo shoot since we could. They're quite rigid with taking photos in the art museum but here we could shoot away.
It's called Public Notice.


This artwork was from a landmark speech given by Swami Vivekananda over a hundred years ago on Sept. 11th to the World Parliament of Religion to end bigotry and fanaticism and the artist, Jitish Kallat used the five colors to represent our levels of homeland security. Different
Back to the French Market for some Gellato - Did I mention there was nothing French about this place, all kinds of cuisines. I'll definitely be returning on another adventure. I LOVE Chicago!!!

1 comment:

  1. I love the colorful hanging basket in the second picture of Becky. What fun you both had!

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