Ice Skating (Millennium Park)

The public ice skating rink at Millennium Park opened a couple weeks ago. Entry is free and skates can be rented for a few dollars, or you can bring your own from home (or the office). When I first arrived, the rink was just a concrete area with a Cafe operating out of it. Since then, the Cafe has been disassembled and removed and the concrete has been flooded to form the ice skating rink.

The rink reminds me of the public outdoor park rinks we skated on when we visited Edmonton several years ago. The only difference is that in Canada, you could show up with a hockey stick for a game of "Rat Hockey". Maybe the glass "boards" have something to do with it? They have Rat Hockey here, but the only place I could find that was close enough is an indoor Hockey rink, where you pay to play and the sessions are held during business hours. There are also a few safety restrictions involved...

It has been above freezing for the last couple weeks, but the ice has remained frozen thanks to the built in cooling system. It was put to the test earlier this week with some unseasonably warm days, where the temperature peeked around 15-18ºC. A few puddles would start to form on the ice around lunch time, but wouldn't last long into the afternoon. Now that the temperature has dropped into the negatives, the ice should be in good condition until March.

Millennium Park is a few blocks from the office, so some of us have been down a few times for a quick lunchtime skate. It is usually very quiet during the week. We also go skating on the weekend, where we can spend more time on the ice. It is busier on the weekend, but has been pretty good compared to the Thanksgiving weekend where the line up to hire skates was about twice as long as the "approx 40 minutes to wait" sign.

Luckily I picked up a pair of skates a couple days before the rink opened. Skates are very reasonably priced, where a quality pair of hockey skates are often on special for under $40. Back in Brisbane, they are at least 5 times that price for similar quality! Obviously there is a larger market over here.

Anyhow... here are a couple photos of the rink.

Segways

They use Segways (http://www.segway.com/) quite a bit in the US, mainly for security and marketing. I have seen security guards buzzing around San Fransisco airport and Millennium Park on them. I have also seen Chicago police riding more rugged models around the city. Some companies attach small advertising signs to them and ride around in groups.

There is a Segway tour group operating out of Millennium Park. You see them cruising around in a group with their g00fy-l00king helmets. I wanted to take Dani on a tour, but we never got around to it. Maybe we will get a chance to go on a tour in the new year.

Thanksgiving Day

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, so I thought I would go down and checkout the parade. It was pretty impressive, there were plenty of marching bands from around the country (I even saw one from Texas).

The bands played everything from Classical Music to Christmas Carols to Pink Floyd. Some of them consisted of a couple hundred marchers with large drum sections that were pumping out some really cool beats. They often bobbed, turned and kind of danced in formation as they marched along.

A few bands had people throwing their batons and sticks in the air and catching them. Some even had cheerleaders in front who would do the cheerleading stunts when the band was marching on the spot. Here are a couple photos I took of some marching bands. Unfortunately I could not capture the sound, motion and general atmosphere in these photos.



These guys were playing "Another Brick in the Wall" boppin' around and throwing their batons up in the air:




I didn't get the camera out quick enough to catch these cheerleaders doing their flips/catches etc:



And some Tap Dancers... They would march along and quickly stop to drop their wood boards and do a tap dance every now and then:



There were also lots of floats and balloons in the parade. There was even an Elvis impersonator singing Christmas Carols on a float. The parade went for a few hours, but I was only there to see about an hour of it.

It was fun to watch and everyone there was happy and cheerful with the crowd often cheering and applauding. There were lots of young children having plenty of fun. I guess Americans have a lot to be thankful for. Americans are very festive and always go the extra mile for special occasions. Last month the streets and homes were decorated for Halloween, there was even a (small) parade. This month there was Thanksgiving with plenty of lights and Christmas decorations going up.

Next month will be Christmas. The buildings, trees and homes are still being decorated in Christmas decorations. Almost every tree in the downtown area is covered in lights and there are lots of wreaths and other greenery etc layed out around the place. I'll have to get some pictures, so people know what I am on about.

Back to the parade, here are some more photos of various floats, balloons etc. I'll try to squeeze in as many as possible in this little space (clicking on the images will enlarge them):



Kermit squeezes under the trainline:





I took over a hundred photos, so I better stop before I run out of space...

American Cars

The cars (pronounced Veeh hikels) in America are quite different to those in Australia. Well except for the new Pontiac GTO which is actually a Holden Manaro and most of the Asian cars which I don't really care for anyways.

Corvettes, Mustangs, Camaros, Trans Ams, Chargers, Hummers and large Chevy and Ford SUVs are quite common. The least common is the Corvette, but there are still a few around on the weekends. I saw a Dodge Viper the other day, but these are about as rare as Corvettes are back in Australia. There are also plenty of Ferraris, Maseratis and even a Lanbourghini or two.

The cars are pretty cheap too. A late 1990's to early 2000 model Corvette (pictured below) starts at around $18,000 USD.




Here is a new Mustang.

Chicago Skyline

For anyone who wants to know what the Chicago Skyline looks like, here is a composition of three photos I took overlooking Millenium Park from the Field Museum. Which is to the south east of the Chicago CBD. There are many more buildings to the west and north/west that cannot be seen here as they are hidden by the eastern buildings.

The northern buldings (right of the photo) are pretty far away and appear much smaller. The two tallest buildings in Chicago are the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Centre. You can see the Sears Tower to the left in the photo, but the John Hancock building is so far away that it barely pokes out above the skyline to the right in the photo. Even though they are a similar height. The John Hancock Centre can be seen as the small black building with two antenna near the tall white one.

Also, Millenium Park is around 4.5x13 city blocks in size and consists of several park areas. Only the most south-eastern park running along the lake is visible in the photo. It starts out around half a block wide and tapers out to almost two blocks wide as it approaches the Field Museum. To see what I am on about, take a look at the satellite view from Google Maps. Here is a link (pointing at the Field Museum where the photo was taken). It takes around 45 minutes to walk from the (central) western side of the Chicago CBD to the Field Museum.

The photos were taken by hand, so they were not lined up as well as they should be. And the individual photos had slightly different lighting, so you can see where they are joined.

This version was modified for the web, so it is much smaller than the original. The original is also much clearer and does not have the pixelation around the buildings that came from cropping out the sky (original size: approx 6.5Mb@6000x1200). You can access a slightly larger version by clicking on the image.