Day 23

Happy Friday! We had a packed day today.

It started out with us becoming familiar with the "L" (metro) over here in Chicago. Our first stop was IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology). The buildings on this campus are very modern—it was fun to look around. We received a lot of information about the Architecture department here, and liked it very much. Before we left we had to check out the Student Center at IIT. It was AMAZING (sorry Cal Poly—the UU doesn't even compare!). Below is a picture of the Student Center as well as one of the images that was on the wall.

Next stop was UIC (University of Illinois Chicago). Also having an impressive program, we are torn between which of these Chicago schools we like the best. We really enjoyed the tour Kristen gave us (thanks Kristen!). Much of the building has natural light coming in where the studios for students are located.

Our goal was take the Architectural building tour via boat (recommended by Dena). We rushed over to get tickets and they were sold out! A lady working there said she would buy the tickets for us and let us have them for $6 less than what they were selling for! So we scored last minute tickets ONCE AGAIN! We have been so fortunate this trip with that! We were able to go on the last boat tour of the day. It is truly the best way to see all of the architecture Chicago has to offer in 90 minutes. Corey only took about 100 pictures or so!! Here are just a few of them (not all 100... don't worry!).

Before we left the downtown area we wanted to see Millennium Park. Here are some of the fun things we saw there. First we saw their pavilion, which was beautiful. This image caught Donna catching a wink of sleep while Corey took pictures of the pavilion (the boat tour was 90 minutes in direct sunlight—definitely enough time to wipe Donna of all energy).

We then saw what looked like a giant bean that was reflective and a big tourist trap. We fell into the trap and took our own pictures. : )

Right next to the Bean were four acrobats that were way up in the air, being held up by a single pole! They did many tricks up high to fun music (also a tourist trap—but fun). 

Before we left the park we saw this interesting part of it. Projected up on these glass structures were numerous faces that at a certain point, spit out water onto the delighted kids. Crazy!

The evening nearing time to go to Feist (yes, we did end up getting great tickets for this too!) we had to eat and get going to the concert. Before we left Chicago, we wanted to have deep dish Chicago-style pizza. We had to grab it to go since it takes 40 minutes for a good deep dish to be cooked (we were rushing to get to the concert on time, but at least we were rushing with good food!).

Horrible traffic made it quite difficult to get to the Ravinia Pavilion on time, but we arrived during the opening band. At intermission we had to go and check out the surrounding area. This location has lawn seating and it was the craziest sight! People had full table settings, seats, multi-course meals, wine... the works! The lawn was PACKED. It was sold out, which means there was about 20,000 people on the LAWN!!! Yikes! This picture doesn't show just how many people were there but gives you a feel for what we saw. 

Feist was spectacular! Very worth going to! We were nice and close and able to experience it to the fullest. We snuck a few shots of the concert for all of you to see what we saw. Feist has such an amazing voice, we LOVED it! (It is a shame she is getting so popular)  : )