We arrived yesterday evening in Chicago. When booking this visit we had looked at hotels, but the costs were prohibitive. It turns out that the World Amateur Boxing Championships were coinciding with our visit. Having experienced some of Jack and Emily’s fisticuffs on our journey we could have probably entered them into the competition – but there are probably child protection laws preventing this!!! Our chosen accommodation was Ray’s Bucktown B&B, but as we drove in the area just off the freeway it did not look to promising (by this time it was getting dark and raining which didn’t help). We were greeted by Ray, who was the most welcoming person. Ray had been a professional photographer – and the walls of the B&B were used to show off his work. His other passion was Red Wing pottery – he has an extensive collection on display (apparently he had more pieces but sold these off). Ray had used his experience of European hotels to model his B&B, making the stay there very relaxing. He has even installed a sauna and steam room – which is a great way to relax after tromping the streets of Chicago.
Today we started off with Ray’s fabulous breakfasts. He is a man who loves cooking and uses the best ingredients which results in fantastic tasting food. The food is all cooked to order and the combinations of omelettes, pancakes and cooked food is almost infinite. We all selected omelettes with sides and after this we were totally stuffed (and did not actually need to eat until the evening). As we had spent a long weekend in Chicago a year earlier there were many sites we chose not to see on this occasion such as the Sears Tower, Shedd Aquarium and Navy Pier, all of which were viewing. This time we decided to catch the bus out to 
the Museum of Science and Industry, which on this day had the added attraction of being free of charge to enter. This museum is very much more the traditional style of science museum without 
too much hands-on stuff – but there are some good exhibits. Our favourite one was the mine exhibit where you go down inside a mine shaft in a lift, and at the bottom there is a recreation of a coal mine. In this mine they have working equipment including the people transported, called a “mantrap” and various bits of drilling equipment which actually work. The kids were fascinated by this and stories of how canaries were used to detect methane. In addition to the mine exhibit there is a huge model train layout with scale models of Chicago and Seattle and the mountains in between and an 727 airliner suspended from the ceiling which you can go in. We had a fun 3 or 4 hours in the museum and it was free – there were plenty of other exhibits to see but we run out of time, including one featuring Star Wars (a temporary exhibit).
Our evening was set aside to see the musical Wicked in the sumptuous Oriental Theatre. Earlier in the day was had gone to the box office to get tickets – there were plenty to be had. Whilst there we got accosted by one of the many homeless people on Chicago’s streets who was more persistent than most! We generally are happy to give food and drink to the homeless and prefer not to give them money (in case then spend this on drink or drugs). As we didn’t have any food on hand we said we’d come back later but this man said that we were lying and deceiving our children and got a bit aggressive, all while we were in the lobby of the theatre. Of course we beat a retreat. The show was great and the children really enjoyed every moment – Emily particularly liked the character of Glinda, who is the good witch by a bit of a dumb blond (although she does come good in the end).
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