Day 333 (Art Institute of Chicago)

Today, we were brave and decided to try out the Chicago public transportation system. This is my mom, waiting for the train.

Once we got downtown, we had some lunch. Per my sister's boyfriend TJ's instructions, we had Italian Beef sandwiches from the same place where we got Chicago dogs the first day, America's Dog.

Both items were very good, and if you are in Chicago, you have to try them.

Then, it was off to the Art Institute of Chicago. I was quite impressed with their collection. The first thing we saw was an exhibit of art from children's books such as these:

The artwork alone makes me want to by these books, although I thought the stories were a little weak. I did, after all, grow up on The Giving Tree, Where the Wild Things Are and Dr. Seuss.

After that, we saw an exhibit off miniature rooms. The pictures look like I just took pictures of some rooms, but I swear these are all 1/12 scale.

Here's a few of the other things we saw.

My mom was too busy reading about this piece to notice that it was actually changing color in front of her.

This little man was plastered to the sidewalk as we made our way to the bus. I'm not sure if the city put him there, or if it was some enterprising Chicagoan, but he made me laugh.

Here's where we had dinner, Gino's, where we failed utterly in our quest to have actual Chicago deep-dish pizza.

I underestimated the time it would take to use the public transportation, not to mention the fact that it takes about an hour to cook one of those deep-dish babies, so we had to go with thin crust if we were gonna make it in time for our 8:00 showing of "Late Night Catechism." The show was really funny, we got there just as it was about to start, and we made through the day and back to Jeannine's apartment without getting lost once. It was quite the adventure in this amazing city. As for the deep dish pizza, we will make up for that tomorrow night for dinner with a bonus of Ethiopian food for lunch, which my mom has never had XD.

PICTURE OF THE DAY: These "pillows" were part of the Chinese ceramics exhibit at the Art Institute. I have a hard enough time falling asleep, can you imagine having to use one of these?!?!