On Saturday morning, we met up with our students in the hotel lobby to explain what was going on. We did not have a match until the late afternoon, so we had time to tour Chicago for three or four hours over the morning and early afternoon. Mer and I made the offer to lead a group downtown, and five of the six families took us up on it (the last family had other family in Chicago they were going to go see). A couple of the families had never traveled on mass transit before, so it was fun to introduce them to the El. Since we were starting at a terminus, we had a car all to ourselves for several minutes, so Mer and I shared how to use the mass transit map, which, as we explained, is useful knowledge, since all major rail systems we have ever seen use similar maps.
We got to the Loop stop downtown, and made our way up to the street (our rail line was a subway at this point). Although it was not planned, we came up right in front of Daley Square, where a very famous Picasso sculpture is located. That made us look like legitimate tour guides. After Mer ascertained which way was east, we headed that way to Millennium Park, a large park that is right downtown and was being built just as Mer and I were leaving Chicago. They did a beautiful job. We walked everyone up to a highly-polished abstract sculpture in the park, which is referred to informally as “The Bean” due to its shape. I forget the real name, but I like calling it The Bean. We wanted to use The Bean as a landmark, as a place to meet everyone if they chose to do their own thing. We quickly pointed out several things people might want to do, and two families decided to try Chicago on their own, which was fine. The three remaining families decided to stay with us for a walking tour.
Mer and I showed our guests the park; we started by showing them the interesting and always crowded fountain in the park. It is only about one inch deep, and is framed by two huge walls that project different faces on them. Occasionally the faces “spit” into the fountain, much to the delight of the children who splash around in it. Mer dipped her toes in while we were there.
We retraced our steps over to the new pedestrian bridge from the park to the Art Institute. The bridge and the gallery to which it leads offer fantastic views of the city, and there were a few pieces of sculpture on display. We tromped back down the ramp and headed over to the small artificial creek that marks the original shoreline of Lake Michigan. The water is very cold for some reason, and may of us dipped our toes in while chatting with a friendly security guard. We next wandered through the small gardens, and I pointed out where the Chicago Blues Festival was happening in the next park over. That took us over to and onto the pedestrian Serpentine Bridge which, if followed, takes people over to the lake shore area. We stopped halfway across to get a grand view south, and then we headed back to the main park. We crossed over the band shell area, which is a large lawn expanse, and ended up back by The Bean. That was a pretty full tour of Millennium Park.
We took everyone over to Michigan Avenue, and we walked north to Water Tower Place. That is about a two-mile walk (or so), and we got to see the Tribune Tower, with its rocks from all over the world, and the Wrigley Building, and we crossed the Chicago River, and saw much of the Magnificent Mile. We ended at Water Tower Place, a huge mall next to the Water Tower, which is one of the few structures that survived the Great Fire of Chicago in the 1800s. The mall has an excellent food court, and so we took lunch there. Mer and I separated from the group in the food court, and after lunch we felt as if we had time to run over to Ghirardelli’s Chocolate to get dessert. I got a sundae, and Mer got a brownie. They were very good. We then wandered at a deliberate but non-hurried pace back to the park and to The Bean, where we expected to meet up with everyone. We were the first back, but everyone did show up before the time agreed upon. We walked back to the El, and got back tot he hotel in good order, with about an hour before we had our only Academic Challenge match of the day.
We all met back up before our one match of the evening. Even though it was a national-level tournament with about twenty teams at the competition, our first draw was against Hawken School, a school about twenty miles from CVCA that we have played several times. Schools can enter more than one team, and we were up against Hawken’s “C” team, so while the match was certainly competitive, we were ahead for the entire round and won by a solid, but not crushing, margin. It was good to get the tournament going with a win.
The various families had their own dinner plans, as did Mer and I. We drove downtown to Shannon and Jo’s new, very cute apartment in the vicinity of Lincoln Square, and we chatted for some time. We then went to their favorite watering hole, The Red Lion, where we got supper (great fries). We meandered over to Lincoln Square after supper, where we tried one of the new-and-hip top-your-own-yogurt places. It was okay. The toppings were great, but the yogurt still tasted like yogurt, which is to say, not like ice cream. Jolene went to a different place and got real Italian gelato. After that, we walked back to the apartment, and Mer and I headed back to the hotel.
Most of Sunday was spent in matches. We started the day with a tough loss, losing only on the last question. For the rest of the day, we lost two other matches by a solid margin to excellent teams, and we won two more matches, to go 3-3 for the weekend. That was a respectable showing, but we needed to go 4-2 in order to make the playoffs, so we were done for the tournament. Nonetheless, it was a great experience.
Mer and I took the opportunity of being free from any Monday matches as a chance to leave on Sunday night and go back to Mom and Marc’s place. The hotel was kind and did not charge us for the cancelled day, even though we did not check out until 5:00. We made our way to Mom and Marc’s, arriving about 8:00, and we again got a good chance to visit (and eat).
Monday we slept in, and then Marc took us to brunch at a local restaurant, the Olympus. It is normally a Greek restaurant, but they serve good breakfasts. Our trip home was uneventful, and all was well when we got home.