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On October, I went to Chicago for a week to visit my friend nic! This post has a bunch of my photos from the trip. I spent a week there, bouncing back and forth between days by myself exploring the city, and days hanging out with nic and other pals.

Sunday Arrival

Here’s me and nic when I first arrived. I was very tired.

My trip started with a Chicago hot dog. It was hot!

I stayed in a nice little one-bedroom AirBNB with a loft in a nice neighborhood in Logan Square (although, as someone who wakes up often during the night, I came to resent the loft.)

I was there at nearly the perfect time of year - sunny, brisk, and pleasant.

nic and their partner and I went and got some extremely good hamburgers which I did not take a picture of.

Monday

As glad as I was to visit friends, I spent a fair bit of time during the week getting into adventures on my own.

Monday, for example, I immediately woke up and went to the Field Museum!

The Field was dazzling. I spent nearly four hours there and I feel like I could’ve gone back the next day and still seen more cool stuff.

I was excited to see the statue of Sue the T-Rex, but I was really and truly blown away by the nature halls: row after row of exquisitely taxidermized animals from all over the world. There were also outstanding exhibits on Ancient China, Ancient Egypt, and the Maori. And plenty more dinosaur skeletons!

After the field, I went to the nearby Shedd Aquarium, which was honestly a bit of a letdown! Apart from it being very noisy and very crowded (it turned out I’d chosen to visit on Columbus Day, so there were tons of kids despite it being a Monday), it was confusingly laid out and very hard to navigate! They also do flex pricing, which I don’t love.

That evening I took an obligatory picture of Wrigley Field and then went to an Alamo Drafthouse around the corner for dinner and a movie! I watched Perfect Blue.

Tuesday

I’d spent Monday getting around via ride share - but I had realized how many people were biking, and how many bike share options were available. So I hopped aboard and spent Tuesday biking, and I’m glad I did! Chicago’s a very bikeable city, it turns out, and the route from Logan Square to the lake was very pleasant.

I wound up at Navy Pier, which was not where I was expecting to go, but seemed like a decent place to do some tourist stuff. I got on the big Ferris wheel and got a good look at the harbor, walked the whole pier, and visited a butterfly garden set up nearby.

Then I was off to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I didn’t see a lot there that interested me, but it was nice to give it a try!

I like this guy, though:

Then I rented an electric scooter instead of a bike, went the wrong way, and had to walk the scooter for a long while when its GPS told it to shut off in the area I’d entered. Whoops!

Wednesday

On Wednesday, nic picked me up and went to a bunch of favorite local stops, which I should have taken more pictures of! We went to a bookstore, an oddities shop, a gaming store, and had a bunch of good food before going back to their place.

We played all of the microgames that nic has made. They were a bunch of fun! I’d like to try making a microgame some day.

Then we watched Hackers while nic made dinner!

I didn’t take many pictures of the games we played or the places we went, but I did take pictures of my hosts’ cats:

Thursday

On Thursday, we met up again to visit some more museums down near the University.

First up was the Black History Museum, which had some really cool artifacts of the distant past and the past century - and a very strange animatronic of beloved first-black-mayor-of-Chicago Harold Washington.

After some food, we sauntered down to the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, which was dense with artifacts - and completely free admission!

Friday

On Friday morning, I was on my own again to visit the Zoo. The Zoo is free, but I splurged for a behind-the-scenes encounter with the penguins which did not go according to plan!

I and the other guests gathered and spent a long time learning about the zoo’s penguin program, and then learned how to prepare to enter the penguin exhibit. The zookeepers made it clear that it was up to the penguins whether they wanted to come over and visit, but they’d entice them with toys and fish. But for all that, none of the penguins even wandered outside the enclosure, much less over to us!

We did get to go into the kitchen and meet the penguins slightly more up close, but it wasn’t wait I’d been hoping for (especially for what I’d paid!) I love penguins! I’ve loved them since I was very small!

After some more wandering around, I met up with nic for lunch and a board game: TRIOMPHE Á MARENGO, a 2-player Napoleonic wargame. I lost, but had a splendid time moving my little Austrian cavalrymen around.

Then we had some really good ramen!!

That evening I met up with a bunch more friends to hang out and took zero pictures the entire time! Must’ve been having too much fun!!

Saturday

Saturday was board game day in earnest. Grace and Theron came over to play a massive game of JOHN COMPANY, the game of managing the East India Company as its parasitic entrepreneurs.