On Saturday our guild field-trip was scheduled to go down-town to the same architectural tour I went on last summer. We saw most of the same things, but it was still a lot of fun.
Since it gets dark so quickly now, we started at the park. This is the first thing we saw when we emerged from the dungeons (relatively warm dungeons) of the train station. It was a beautiful sunny day, but cold!
We went to Park Grill (under the Bean, facing the ice rink) for lunch. This is our group. I had a brie salad that was delicious. You can see we are having a lot of fun.
The restaurant was very festive, and we were watching the skaters out of the window. I am disappointed in all my pictures, because you completely loose the effect of the skating: I should have taken a short video, and embedded it here. Every time I glanced toward the rink it grabbed my attention because skating is an unusual motion from what we are used to. The gliding is a lot of fun.
We didn't spend too long in the park because of the temperature, but we saw quite a bit because the trees do not have their leaves on. This is the Bean from an unusual angle. From here it looks more like an egg! The actual name is Cloud Gate; isn't the sky gorgeous?
The water in the Crown Fountain was turned off, of course, but the pictures are still active. We saw two different portraits during our walk in the park.
The water in the Crown Fountain was turned off, of course, but the pictures are still active. We saw two different portraits during our walk in the park.
(I don't know if I would like to see my face 50 feet tall!)
We had to walk into the wind to get to the Palmer House and the Empire room, still just as lovely as ever. I didn't take any new pictures there. We were able to step into the building that formerly housed Peacock Jewelers. I think this ceiling is lovely.
I had never seen the Fields (Macy's) decorated windows for Christmas, so that was one of my goals. I really didn't know what to expect. It was a very festive atmosphere, with people streaming down the side walk. The theme of the windows was "Make-A-Wish" and I felt it was pretty commercial; I don't know if that is how it always is. The windows themselves were very pretty.
I had never seen the Fields (Macy's) decorated windows for Christmas, so that was one of my goals. I really didn't know what to expect. It was a very festive atmosphere, with people streaming down the side walk. The theme of the windows was "Make-A-Wish" and I felt it was pretty commercial; I don't know if that is how it always is. The windows themselves were very pretty.
These are above the section of sidewalk where the windows are. I kind of wished they were playing some trumpet Christmas music.
We didn't spend too much time in Macy's. The perfume department was a little overpowering for people with allergies. But the Civic center did not disappoint.
(I wonder if anyone would mind if you took rubbings of these?) Several of us were commenting on what fun it would be to use these as an inspiration for embroideries. There are plenty more pictures in my Flickr account.
This was the end of the day, and from the Civic Center we got a very nice view of Millennium Park: Pritzker Pavilion, the Bean (Cloud Gate), and the roof of the new addition to the Art Institute.
The nice part was, we didn't even have to go outside to get back to the train. We were all quite grateful for the comfortable, warm train back home.
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