Our Chicago Date

I am not really that much of a fan of trying new things when it comes to outings and dates. Since I've been in Chicago I've taken pretty much every girl on the same date to downtown Chicago to see some of the sights in Millennium Park and then to the art museum (it's free on Thursdays). The exception to that rule was Ashley. Maybe it was because she lived far north, or because her hours were always a little weird before we got married and we only had shortish blocks of time together (or late ones). I'm not sure why, but we never got around to my city date. So we did now!

Millennium park has a great big bean shaped sculpture. To me, it's the most recognizable symbol of Chicago.


Its mirrored finish means you get lots of crazy views of the city and distorted views of yourself. For Ashley, it also meant an opportunity to pursue one of her favorite hobbies...the hunt for pickable zits (one of the main things she like about me is that I have them)

One of the years that I participated in Academic Decathlon the theme for the art competition was the Chicago Institute of art. While we were there we got a good look at two of the pieces that I studied that year. It's always weird for me to see these in person after having studied them in books for so long. Here's Saint George slaying a dragon. It's strange to look at things that were painted hundreds of years before America was discovered. By the way the artist used real gold to paint the golden parts of this painting. They had limited resources in the dark ages.


And yes, the protrusion on this ceremonial hat is a phallic symbol. It brings a lot of power to the person wearing it, or for that matter the person standing next to it in a museum.


My personal favorite spot in the museum is the lower level, where they have the white marble sculptures. Sculptures speak to me more than paintings do, somehow. It just seems to me that artists that work in sculpture are much more able to create beautiful things than those that paint, in particular. I think this one spoke to Ashley. Or...something.


And of course, one of my favorite things to do with cameras is merge a number of shots together (five in this case, I believe) on the computer. Ashley was kind enough to appear twice in this one. We did another panoramic shot with a much wider angle and more pictures, but it's almost too wide to fully appreciate.


As a side note, the museum allows photography, but not the use of flash. The last camera I used did pretty well because it was pretty high end for a point and shoot camera, but the new camera really blows it away in terms of ability to take pictures in a low light situation. You'd have to really peep at the pixels to appreciate it. But as it turns out that's something I like to do.

We really enjoyed our city date, including the obligatory trip to Panda Express right across from the museum. It was nice to share a cultural experience and elevate our aesthetic senses a bit more.


So beautiful, don't you think? And the vase is very nice too.