Chicago Travel Guide, Part IV

If we're doing a travel guide, we have to talk about food, right?

That really is the truth. Food is so much of our experience in a place. Food helps us get closer to the culture of a place. It shows us what is important to a locale, what locals like, perhaps what locals don't like.

And Chicago is no different. I went into my trip to Chicago excited about their famous foods: deep dish pizza, Italian beef sausages, Chicago dogs. And for the most part, I was not disappointed.

I had always heard about the hot dogs at Wrigley Field. And I'm not sure why. They were not that tasty. The Old Style beer was, though, even though temperatures hovered in the 30s on the day I went. If I were really in the mood for a good dog, though, I'd go to Chavez Ravine. The Dodgers Dogs are out of this world.

But back to what Chicago does well . . .

Yes, that's a pizza. And yes, it's good.

This is Lou Malnati's. And it was the best pizza we had in the Windy City. We also tried Gino's East. Many tourists opt for Pizzeria Uno. The word on the street is that is where tourists go . . . but it's not that good. What I do know is that deep dish pizza is truly a pie . . . or more like a casserole.

We didn't eat there. But that is a really big McDonald's.

Just down the road from the Mickey D's is a place called Portillo's. Everything we had there was good. Supposedly, they have really good Italian beef. I cannot say from personal experience how good that is . . . but I can say their dogs are dynamite, as well as their cake shakes:

What's a cake shake? A milkshake with a piece of chocolate shake. Hands down, one of the most unique . . . and best things I have ever put in my mouth. So good, we had to try it twice. I had always wondered how good a pickle on a hot dog could be. Now I know; it's tasty. Don't believe me? Just ask The Fridge:

And last, but most certainly not least, the Italian beef sandwiches (I would recommend getting them wet everywhere you go):

Mr. Beef is good. And as you can tell from the building's facade, it's a very authentic experience. But my vote for best in the city is Al's #1 Italian Beef:

I recommend ordering it hot, which means it comes with peppers on it. But then remove the peppers before eating. That will give the beef a nice flavor. But the beef is so good and is so overpowering that the peppers really get in the way when trying to eat the sandwich. Al's has a number of locations around town. I enjoyed the downtown one, as you are able to stand at the counter and watch everyone go by and, if memory serves me right, catch a good view of The El (the downtown subway line).

Chicago Travel Guide, Part III

Wicker Park is a lovely little area of Chicago. I say little because it is so quaint and nice that it feels like a small area. I have no idea how large Wicker Park actually is.

You could literally spend all day walking around the area, looking at the homes. I only had a couple of hours, so I hit the high spots noted in the Frommer's Day-to-Day Guide.

The following is pretty typical of the gardens and yards of the houses in the area:

Along Hoyne Ave. (I believe that's where it is), you'll find this little gem:

I had breakfast the morning that I was in Wicker Park at the Bongo Room. Wow. My travel guides did not steer me wrong. If I remember correctly, there is more than one Bongo Room in Chicago. I believe there is a good location close to Soldier Field, just south of downtown. One thing that makes Bongo Room great is you never know exactly what will be offered on the menu, particularly in terms of their specials, because they offer whatever is in season (a sign that fresh ingredients are being used). Fortunately for me, this little ditty was offered when I was there:

Red velvet pancakes with vanilla bean sauce. Damn straight.

I realize that the next pic will not interest everyone. But I have always been fascinated by strange architecture, buildings that don't necessarily make sense. The Flatiron Building in NYC has always blown my mind. And after seeing it in person, my mind is truly blown. Chicago has their own Flatiron Building. Not nearly as large, it, nonetheless, sort of has a Chicago feel to it:

Wicker Park is a great place to visit, a nice little excursion from the rest of the Windy City. Much of it has a trendy vibe to it that is contagious. Lots of locally-owned restaurants and shops. And it's not far at all from downtown or other major spots around the city, just a few subway stops. In fact, in this picture, taken from the subway boarding area, you can see just how close downtown is (note the Sears Tower in the right background):

Just hop on the blue line and stop at Damen:

Chicago Travel Guide, Part II

Chicago's downtown area is a great place to spend the day . . . or the week.

This above picture is not actually in downtown . . . but it's of downtown. It's taken just north of downtown, along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. But this picture gives you a hint of the skyline of downtown. As I mentioned previously, Chicago has the feel of NYC. But it is much, much more manageable.

The next picture, on the other hand, is not something you would expect to see close to the downtown of a large metropolitan city. But this is what makes Chicago great:

Many great people hail from Chicago, such as Paul Harvey:

The Magnificent Mile is a great road to walk up and down and window-shop. Lots of high-end shops, similar to Fifth Avenue, but much more accessible. I wouldn't spend tons of time on it . . . and I sure wouldn't walk an entire mile on it (though I'm not sure there's really that much to see, anyway). But it's an interesting spot.

The Chicago River meanders through downtown. And the city has done a great job of capitalizing on it (this is from the Michigan Ave. bridge):

Much of what makes downtown great is all of the beautiful things you happen upon:

And the remarkable things that you happen upon:

If you are an art fan, the art museum on the eastern edge of downtown is a must. You'll see classics, such as Seurat:

And one of my personal favorite artists, Van Gogh:

And American Gothic:

Chicago Travel Guide, Part I

I have heard it said that Chicago is a more manageable New York City. I think that is true. Chicago has the feel of a very large, metropolitan city. But it is not so large; and there is not so many things to do and see that one feels overwhelmed and not able to even find a place to begin.

We had basically a long weekend in Chicago, when we were there.. I would love to go back and spend more time there. But even our limited time, I felt, gave us a good primer, a good introduction to the city. Three days and two nights afforded us the opportunity to hit the main places that we wanted to go. But it was by no means enough time to do an exhaustive tour of the city.

Unless you absolutely detest baseball, or sports as a whole, an absolute must is Wrigley Field.

I truly believe that this would be a great place for anyone to go, even if you only have a cursory interest in the Chicago Cubs, baseball, or sports. This stadium is so unlike any other stadium around that it is truly a novelty.

There is much about modern stadiums to be desired . . . the music blaring through the speakers, the larger-than-life scoreboards, the food that is out of this world . . . those things are all good and great. But Wrigley Field takes you back . . . back to the way baseball used to be. It leaves you to wonder if this is the way it still should be?

Be it that way or not, going to Wrigley is an experience that every baseball fan should attempt to make at some point in their lifetime. It truly is unlike any park around.

Flatiron

I have always been fascinated with the Flatiron Building in New York City.

I can remember seeing it in books as a child and thinking how incredible it must be. And after seeing it, I am just as amazed as I was when I was a child. At the time of its building, many people thought it was simply fall over at some point. And I can see why. It's just a really interesting building.

I had no idea that a Flatiron Building also existed in Chicago until reading a travel guide book before going there. Sure, it's nothing like the one in NYC. But it's still an interesting building.

And I'm not really sure if this qualifies for a Flatiron Building. But it does sort of come together in a similar fashion. I came across this while walking along Magazine Street in New Orleans. Nothing like NYC . . . or Chicago . . . but still interesting.

Roads

I have always been fascinated with roads. Not sure why. But roads, where they go, their numbers, the way they curve . . . all of it has always fascinated me.

I have particularly been interested in the beginning and ending of roads, to know that a road begins somewhere and ends somewhere, and doesn't just go on forever, to locate where it starts and where it ends. That stuff really gets me going.

Route 66 is probably the most famous road in America. I feel honored to have seen where it begins, in Chicago, and where it ends, on the Santa Monica Boardwalk in Los Angeles.

The two places, its beginning and ending, are very different. As you can see, its beginning is barely marked. It is in downtown Chicago and if it were not for this sign, no one would have a clue (although, if you go one block over, there is also a sign on a one-way street going the other way, marking its ending). I had to dig fairly hard to even find this sign. A travel guide book told me of its whereabouts. I had been by it a few times on The El, the Chicago downtown inner-loop subway system, seen in the background. But I had to walk the streets for probably thirty minutes or so before I found the signs. In fact, I almost gave up, thinking I was in the wrong place.

The road's terminus, on the other hand, is done in typical American kitschy style. There are all sorts of markers along the boardwalk, complete with many touristy shops where you can purchase all sorts of paraphernalia. And, if my memory serves me correctly, there is one shop that is completely devoted to Route 66 with lots of interesting information.

Two completely different places. I guess that probably says a lot about Route 66 . . . and America . . . and the world we live in. Neither of them are necessarily right, neither necessarily wrong. It's interesting to be able to go to both places and not discount or put down either of them.

Really Good Eats

If you haven't been, you need to go to Chicago.

If you go to Chicago, you need to eat deep-dish pizza.

We tried a couple of different places. Gino's East is good. But by far, the best is Lou Malnati's. The pizza there is really more of an experience than a plate of food. The word "pie" really encapsulates what their pizza is.

That's it. No life lessons in this post or anything like that. Just go to Chicago. And eat at Lou Malnati's.

What We Can Control

Sometimes things do not go the way we want them to go.

That's simply part of travel . . . it's also part of life.

On a trip to Chicago last year, I had all sorts of good stuff planned out, including baseball. I had a ticket to a Cubs game at Wrigley (which, by the way, was incredible). Tickets to the only White Sox game going on during our stay were incredibly expensive on Stubhub, as it was the home opener. I did not want to pay the prices that were offered on Stubhub. So I thought that surely I could buy a ticket from someone outside the gates for much cheaper. I have done that at a number of sporting events. And I figured I would definitely be able to do it there.

Wrong.

The tickets being offered outside the gates were much more expensive than what I could have gotten a ticket for on Stubhub. If I really wanted to get inside the gates of U.S. Cellular Field, the home of the White Sox, I should have just paid the prices that were being offered on Stubhub. Instead, this is as close as I got to the action that day:

I was deflated, defeated, and just, overall, unhappy. My plan simply did not work out. And I was left out in the cold (literally, it was freezing).

At that point, I had two options: either get mad about it and let it ruin my day or move on and enjoy Chicago through another avenue. Admittedly, I did a little bit of both. I stewed around for a while, muttering to myself. Then I tried to move on and do the next thing on my list: Chinatown. However, it was kind of a stinker, too:

Chicago's Chinatown is nothing like NYC's or Boston's . . . it's just kind of there . . . full of tourists in awkward hats. After walking it a few blocks, I decided to hop back on the subway and see other parts of Chicago.

The experience was, actually, a good travel experience. With travel, our best laid plans sometimes do not unfold like we want them to or, many times, like they should have. These experiences, though, are often the best travel experiences we can have. Travel mirrors life in so many ways. Life is full of lots of ups. It's also full of plenty of downs. We cannot always control our experiences and how things turn out for us. What we can control is how we react to and deal with life . . . and travel.

The Beauty of Travel

One of my favorite TV shows is, An Idiot Abroad. The show takes a man named Karl Pilkington around the world. The genius of it is in the idiot, Karl. Karl is like so many of us. He has funny quirks, things annoy him, and everything is better where he is from. In other words, he is not a good traveler. Or, he is the world's best traveler.

The producers of the show, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, place Karl in some very exotic places around the world, doing very exotic things, seeing some of the world's great wonders. Along the way, viewers are treated to amazing sites, places, food, etc. The true beauty of the show is that one gets to watch Karl, an idiot, do travel. The irony is it shows how Karl is like each of us. We are all idiots, thinking that our own way and our culture's way of doing things is best. Sociologists call it: "ethnocentrism." Gervais and Merchant prefer to term it: "idiot."

Amazingly, there are some breakthroughs. Karl has some wonderful travel moments, in which he realizes that there is more to life than what he knows in his tiny circle, at home. On one such breakthrough, Karl is in Mexico, to see Chichen Itza. At the end of the show, Karl reflects that the people of Mexico really know what they are doing. He notes that they go through their lives, doing what they want to do, not concerned about what other people think. He believes that makes people in Mexico happier than people where he comes from. He was particularly intrigued by people in a small village who work in the field all day long, then come home and "do nothing," as he put it. They just mill around town all day, doing nothing in particular. But he noted they were the happiest people he had ever seen.

That's what travel can do . . . if we allow it to. Travel can expose us to things that do not make sense to us. But upon reflection, we realize there is more than one way to do something, more than one way to do life than what we see with our normal, everyday surroundings.

Travel can do this with things as simple as a pickle on a hot dog (I had never considered until I went to Chicago):

Or as interesting as pay-to-use public toilets in Budapest (something I still have not wrapped my head around but am intrigued by):

But that's the beauty of travel.

I'm the Best!

Every since we were young, people of my generation have been taught to strive for the best . . . in everything. That has had a devastating effect.

We recently had dinner with a friend from Pakistan, who is a doctoral student. I asked him if he plans on staying in America after he finishes his studies. Without even blinking an eye, he said, "No way." His response is that people in America are too competitive. He said that everyone has to be the best at everything. This, he says, makes for a much lower quality of life.

That's too bad . . . but I definitely see what he is saying. A more simple life seems to be a better one. I think that is so, spiritually, financially, emotionally, and otherwise.

The image above is a sign I saw hanging in a restaurant on a recent trip to Chicago, in the Wicker Park area. I was walking down the sidewalk; and it caught my attention. We want to be the best . . . at any and everything, just so we can claim it. So much so that we will claim even the most random of categories, including grilled artichokes. This just seemed like such a random thing to claim, just to be able to say it. "I'm the best!" Is there that big of a market out there for grilled artichoke???

I am not saying that we should not strive for greatness . . . but striving for greatness without some perspective has its costs. Perhaps a more humble, simple way of living is better. One that affirms others' greatness, along with our own. One that sees that getting to the top is not all it's cracked up to be. And one that affirms that being the best at something (or anything) is not the most important thing. It's not just what we do . . . it's also who we are. We need to keep in mind the people that we are becoming in our journeys.