I just spent a couple of days in Chicago with a friend last week and as always Chicago is full of great stuff to see and do.  Lots of surprises.  Things that make me smile.  

So, what was interesting, amusing and notable? 

We stayed at the Chicago Athletic Association hotel filled with old and new, hip and hot, fun and funny.  Like, look at this.  The Bearded Board of Directors?   Made me hoot. 

I think there’s two reasons to stay at this hotel.  One is the convenience of the Shake Shack, if you like a burger and fries.  In a perfect world, I’d get to eat them every day.  The Shake Shack is on the ground floor of this hotel.  You can find it   on Michigan Avenue right across the street from Millennium Park. 

 The other reason to stay at this hotel is preferred  access to Cindy’s, an extremely popular roof top bar. You get to ride the guest elevator and avoid the long line to get into this very cool  bar with spectacular views of the Bean, Lake Michigan, the Institute of Art and beyond.  

We liked it so much we went twice–in daylight and then the second night after dark.  Fabulous.

For more about this hotel, visit  this older blog post–Don’t miss the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel   

We popped into the Chicago Cultural Center to see the Grand Rapids Art Museum generated exhibit about the Great Lakes.  If you missed it when it was in Grand Rapids, here’s a chance to see it in Chicago. This is worth doing and quite spectacular. 

Also at the Cultural Center is a huge mural done by Keith Haring in Chicago. 

For dinner we headed to Daisies in Logan Square. This is an  easy, casual eatery with especially  good food.  A drink at the roof of the Soho Club topped out the evening but I was having so much fun people watching I forgot to take photos.  They frown on them anyway.  Too cool for social media. 

On Thursday we observed a Food Photo Shoot at Parchment Studio.  Cooler than cool.  I loved watching the stylist set up the food for our photographer friend to shoot with his new Sony Mirror-less camera. The image below is the kitchen of the studio where the food is being prepared.

 A little time in Wicker Park, a walk on The 606 and lunch at Hot Chocolate.  I loved my Avocado toast.  Gorgeous presentation.   Too pretty to eat but I did.  Ymmmm.  

We made our way to the old Meat Packing District to pop into Pagodo Red, a terrific gallery and store focusing on Asian stuff.  Worth the trip.  The area has completely changed though with the advent of Google and the ultra hip Ace Hotel. 

Here’s a blog post about this area written a while back. Checking out the Fulton Market Area in Chicago You wouldn’t recognize the area today.  Huge changes.  

To finish off this blog post, I’ll some  scenes from walking around the city.  I hope you enjoy my effort to capture city life.