A Wintery Chicago Weekend

Last month I flew to Chicago to celebrate my birthday with my sister and brother-in-law. I’ll say this right off the bat: I had a terrific time but…there are better places to go to celebrate a birthday than Chicago in January! I’m contemplating a much more tropical destination for 2010.

The CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) is my favorite method of getting into town from O’Hare or Midway airports. For a mere $2.25 a train will whisk me to within 2 blocks of my sister’s Gold Coast Apartment. This time around, she met me at the airport and we opted to get off at an earlier stop and walk the mile along ice coated sidewalks. Fresh air? Yes, that was good. Exercise? Always good. Dragging a roll-aboard suitcase through ruts of ice? Not so good. I do confess, I’ll probably do the same on my next visit (a scant 10 days from now) so I’m not complaining too much. We stayed in that first night and enjoyed a falafel dinner.

The next day was Sunday. We bundled up and headed to one of my favorite breakfast spots, The Tempo Café. I first discovered this Chicago icon in the Jane & Michael Stern’s Roadfood book and was happy to introduce Crissa & Brendan to this coffee shop that’s literally right down the street from them. They’re open 24 - 7 and in addition to breakfast, at whatever hour you choose, they have a full menu. My only gripe is that they’re cash only, but they do have an ATM. Next on our agenda was a ride up the CTA’s brown line to the Logan Square to the see The Wrestler at the Logan Theater. We were early enough to walk to near-by Wrigley Field and took a few pix to prove it. The Logan Theater opened in 1915 as The Paramount and retains much of the architectural character today. The seats are tortuously uncomfortable but probably do not date to 1915. I really enjoyed the movie but a light comedy it wasn’t.

We had a reservation for tea at the Drake Hotel and gladly made the leap from wrestler ring to gracious dining room with a lilting harpist performing. Oh, so civilized! We went directly to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Court Theater to see a performance of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck . Again, it was fabulous, but very dark. That’s two for two!

Shopping on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile took up a good part of Monday. Eight blocks of Northern Michigan Avenue was dubbed “the Magnificent Mile” by a real estate developer in the 1940’s and the name stuck. It was even trademarked in 2001. The stretch between the Drake Hotel to the north and the Wrigley Building to the south is home to the cities most upscale shopping. I escaped with only a new pair of gloves, exhibiting great restraint.


That evening it was up the brown line again to Lincoln Square. I had the opportunity to check out the very cool Old Town School of Folk Music where my sister is taking autoharp lessons. What is an autoharp you ask? Why, it’s a chorded zither, of course. I suspect she decided to study such an obscure instrument because it’s so quirky. I’m not sure if I’ve got an autoharp virtuoso in the family or not but it is a fun thing to do. The street is lined with tantalizing restaurants. We were pleased with our selection: Jack Rabbit, a southwestern restaurant with an intriguing wine list. Fed and happy, we returned home, I fetched my suitcase and boarded a CTA train bound for O’Hare. I overnighted at a Hampton Inn near the airport and caught an early morning flight away from the single digit temperatures.