Chicago Bound for Art!

Since my sister and her family lives in the suburbs outside of Chicago, I visit about once a year. Of all the times I've visited, I've never been to the Art Institute of Chicago. During this visit, I made sure that I take a special trip downtown to go see it, afterall I did study Art History in college.  It was my Major. My sister had to work a half day, so I took the Metra downtown to her office to meet her for lunch prior to going to the museum.

The Metra is so fast and such a convenient way to travel downtown. 

Got off at Union Station, and luckily my sister only works a few blocks from here.

The one thing I always notice immediately about Downtown Chicago that is so different from NYC is that the streets are SO CLEAN.  There is hardly any litter in sight.  Amazing!

 

We decided to eat at Roti, a "fast food" Mediterranean style restaurant.  I ordered the falafel plate with couscous, pickled cabbage, and hummus.  Wow, it was so good.   

We walked off our big lunch by walking to the Art Institute.  It's a good 15 minute walk from where we ate lunch.  We walked passed the famous Chicago Theatre.  One day, I'll have to catch a show here.

We also walked passed Millennium Park, and I took a picture of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the bandshell designed by Frank Gehry.  I've been to this park many times, so we didn't spend any time here. Just a quick walk by.

I noticed that many of the flowers in the gardens were still in bloom at the park!

We also walked passed "The Bean" or the Cloud Gate sculpture.  Millennium Park definitely has some cool works of art to look at!  Again, we didn't stop here because we've seen / visited it many times.

Finally, we spotted the lions, and we were at the front steps of the Art Institute.

Once inside, I was excited by the museum's amazing collection.  I especially loved this Buddha statue.  Wow, would I love one of these stone statues in my garden!  Maybe I'll buy a replica one day to grace my garden! That would be awesome.

Chagall's stained glass windows stopped me in my tracks.  They were indeed gorgeous!  I could have sat there and stared at the windows for hours.

I loved seeing Grant Wood's American Gothic.  The painting was surprisingly smaller than I thought it would be.  I love this painting!

I also love still life.  Especially vegetable still life.  :)  Vegetables in it's pure form is so beautiful, it's not wonder artists painted it. 

After walking around the museum for 4 hours, we needed a break, so we headed to the cafe and got ourselves a snack.  I picked out an Orange Cream soda from the local Chicago brewers Goose Island.  They are more known for their beers, but apparently they make great soda too!  I love trying local eats and this drink was delicious!  If only I could bring a case back with me to NYC!

The last thing we saw at the Art Institute was this chalkboard at the Windows on the War exhibit. The board said that visitors could write a message on the chalkboard upon viewing the exhibit. 

So I decided to just leave the following remark, written in pink chalk.