When we've travelled to great cities in Europe like Amsterdam, Madrid and Paris, we always have a great time and look forward to when we can take our next trip. This past week we travelled to another great city - Chicago. I was reminded we don't have to go so far afield to find a city you'll want to return to.
Chicago is one of the great cities of the world. According to Wikipedia it has the fourth largest GDP of all cities in the world behind only Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles and ahead of London and Paris.
Soccer was what prompted us initially to go to Chicago. It is the closest city to Minnesota that has Major League Soccer. The soccer fanatics in our house wanted to see an MLS game so we bought tickets to a Chicago Fire game and saw the Fire defeat Toronto 1-0. It was a chilly but dry night and we had a good time. We experienced the same sort of excitement and atmosphere at a professional soccer game that one sees at an MLB or NBA game. Lots of families and kids, and the stadium was mostly full. Not bad for the last game of the season.
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| Some of the essential elements of a trip to Chicago: Architecture, Traffic and Tourists. |
One common experience when traveling to one these great cities of the world seems to be the mass transit system. The Chicago rail system makes it easy to get around. We bought one day passes that let us hop on and off the trains and busses.
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| Orange Line stop in Downtown |
Like all these cities I've visited, we experienced great restaurants, amazing architecture, and fascinating sights.
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Cloud Gate, aka 'The Bean', in Millenium Park
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The Bean taking a picture of us, or vice versa.
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| Neo at the Crown Fountain |
We're looking forward to another trip and more sights.
