My first update from the windy city. we arrived friday night around 7:45. took a taxi to our hotel. the hotel seemed nice; it had a very modern feel to it. when we checked in we were told that there were no more rooms with 2 queen beds. instead we got room with one king bed and were told that a roll-away bed would be sent to our room. we left for the hotel to find some food. we ended up going to a small italian place right next to our hotel. it was decent food with a live jazz band. the only thing i didn't like about the restaurant was that the band was too loud for such a small restaurant. after dinner we walked down Michigan Ave. and looked at all the stores and buildings. most of the stores were closed but we went to borders and looked at books. i found a bunch of books that i wanted, but didn't buy. next to borders is a Ghirardelli’s chocolate store, we had dessert there. i shared a chocolate raspberry sundae with my mom. it was quite good. walked back to the hotel and found out that they were out of roll away beds :(. My step-dad slept on the floor and i shared a bed with my mom (we got our room switched today).

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to the Chicago science and industry museum. we specifically went to see the Body Worlds exhibit. it was really cool, but since it was a weekend it was really crowded. i didn't even think about the bodies being real. they just seemed like plastic. it was cool to see all the diseases. it helps to understand what it a particular disease or disorder when you can see it right in front of you. it was kind of creepy seeing a pregnant woman with a baby in the womb and all the fetuses. the coolest was a person riding a horse; both the horse and the rider were plasticized. we also saw exhibit of video games. that was the most entertaining. it started with pong and the earliest games and moved through the years describing the features that made certain games ground breaking. the best part was that you could play all the games. the last exhibit we saw at the museum was the only German U-Boat captured during world war two; U 505. it was impressive to see an entire U-Boat inside a museum. it was very interesting to see the inside of the submarine, but the tour was over dramatized and felt kind of fake. i was really excited when i got to see two German enigma machines. that is one military antique that i would love to own, although i don't know if any our owned by private collectors. after the museum we hopped in a cab and went downtown to pizzeria uno for Chicago deep dish pizza. the wait was over an hour, so we walked down the street to pizzeria due the sister restaurant of pizzeria uno. I wasn't that impressed with the pizza. it wasn't bad but it was kind of runny. after dinner we wandered around the downtown again and ended up in borders. hung out there for a while and then went back to the hotel.

Today we took and architectural tour of the city by boat on the Chicago river. it was a great tour with lots of information; the only downside was the 100 degree heat and high humidity. we saw all different styles of architecture which included modern, post-modern and art deco. i took lots of pictures which i will try to post, but i might not be able to till i get back. the internet here in the hotel is kind of slow. after the tour we came back to the hotel to recover from the heat. we had lunch at gold coast hot dogs. we walked down to the chicago architecture foundation to buy tickets for a bus tour of frank Lloyd Wright’s work in the Chicago area. walked back along Michigan ave. and walked through grant park a bit. there are these 2 big rectangular columns made of glass brick in the park. they have water flowing from the tops. the two sides of the columns that faced each other had video screens behind the glass brick. the video screens showed a face on each column. every 5 or 10 minutes the area where the mouth was shot out a big jet of water like the face was spitting. tonight we are going out to some sort of Chinese bistro. seems interesting. tomorrow we are going to the Art Institute of Chicago. they are having an exhibit of Toulouse-Lautrec.