Orange Friend

Can’t believe I got to really meet my Orange Friend from Chicago after all these years of being blog/email friends! The date we set last month to meet in Chicago came around and we met at a great cafe (Intelligentsia) and sat outside talking for a couple of hours. I was fascinated by her accent and I’m sure she had trouble understanding us at times. I knew she was mad on the All Blacks so took her an All Blacks scarf – so look out for that with a splash of orange around Chicago.

Orange friends!

Until we meet again Jo (and tell your Mister that all that orange is not so bad, mine said he could’ve carried on chatting for hours)!!

Chicago is hot

It was Memorial Day this weekend just gone, the official start of summer in the U.S. and we were being the visitors for a change, staying with The Mister’s brother and family in Chicago for an extended weekend. And it was HOT! After living through my first 35*C day in New York the day before we flew over there I thought we’d get a rest from the heat but we had 27, 28, 30, 32 and 28 – even had to break out the shorts one day (just around the house though).

We stayed in a beautiful leafy neighbourhood with some streets and houses that looked like many movie neighbourhoods we’ve seen and we had a great mix of family time and city time and I finally got to meet my Orange Friend from Chicago.

  • When we arrived we went straight to the school to hear the girls sing in their end of year school concert – man there were a lot of kids there! Then we all went for ice-cream.

School concert

  • We had a lovely morning with the kids showing us around a bit of Millennium Park, the highlights (theirs and ours) being the face ‘walls’ that spat water all over everyone and The Bean (it’s very cool).

The Bean

  • We were left to explore the city on our own for the afternoon – it’s a great city, more of the world’s tallest buildings than New York but on the whole doesn’t feel as high and everything is blue (guess it’s the reflection from the lake and sky). On our wander we discovered orange-trunked trees, the L (train, which is actually ‘L’ for loop according to the signs inside and not ‘El’ for elevated because it rattles around on high tracks as I’d always thought) and Intellegentsia that our Supreme Friend had asked us to find out about where we had fantastic coffee and bought some beans in an orange packet for home.

Chicago river

The L

  • My sister-in-law ran a 10-mile race ending at Soldier Field at the weekend so we were up early one morning to take our seats in the grandstand to clap and cheer when we finally spotted her amidst 10,000 other runners! After a celebratory picnic in the park we escaped from the heat under the trees in the backyard before braving a suffocating walk to Whole Foods to get some supplies to cook dinner for our hosts (kumara & feta salad and key lime pie).

149 - 29 May 2010

  • After meeting my Orange Friend from Chicago we sought shelter from the heat at the Planetarium and got right up close to the lake. Went out for a great night in the city including champagne at the top of the John Hancock building and a visit to a steak house.

Hancock building

  • On Monday (Memorial Day) we were all set to go to the zoo when a massive thunderstorm struck with full on fork lightening so we diverted to a local mall to wait out the rain and have lunch. Managed to get out for a walk in the afternoon to see a lot of the houses proudly decked out with flags for Memorial Day.

151 - 31 May 2010
Chicago is a great city, felt quite small in the centre – it was great to catch up with family and meet my Orange Friend.