1st & 2nd May

Wow! What a week that was. As you can see that I started off writing a daily blog but after the 3^rd day, i.e. Monday 30^th April, it was just not possible to keep pace with the week that sped full throttle. Before we realized and blinked the week was over. Our bodies were working 2 and half times faster than our brains. No kiddin!!!

Well, so now that I have some breather I’ll tell you what happened while we blinked? On Tuesday, 1^st May, May Day, Labor Day, Maharashtra day, Gujarat day, we visited the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Remember seeing those guys shouting out loud with some funny sign language in the movies trading something…yea that’s exactly what we saw. Brokers and agents trading in Commodities like Corn, Soya, Wheat, etc. etc. Although we could not take pictures in there, we got a great guided tour of the place and got a lot of insight into the world of commodities trading…doesn’t mean I’m in ‘em again.

The next destination was the most coveted Rotary place on earth, Rotary International World Headquarters. From shaking a hand with Paul Harris’s statue, to touching his furniture, glancing through the huge list of major donors, proudly holding India’s flag and a visit to the office of Rotary International President, Kalyan Banerjee, we did it all. It sure was an honor and I can’t thank Rotary enough for this respect.

After that overwhelming feeling, we drove past the beautiful Bahai Temple, a few ethnic neighbourhoods and a quick stop to click pictures with Michael Jordan…I mean with his statue ;-), we retired for the day. Dinner was at a lovely Mexican restaurant with Bob’s daughter Jenny and her 6 month old Austin…He’s shooo cute!

2^nd May, Wednesday was the day of our 1^st presentation. So we did little rehearsal at Marie’s house before we left for the Oak Park River Forest Rotary Club Meeting. It went off pretty well. Better than expected with the amazing response we got from the club members, who said this was the best GSE presentation they had seen so far. That was a sigh of relief!

Heard about Frank Lloyd Wright? I had not either, before some architects told me how lucky I was to visit his home, studio and some of the houses designed by him. Boy, was I in for a walk of a lifetime? I saw some of the most beeeeaaauutiful homes I could not even imagine existed. Architecture, so pretty, so thoughtful, so advanced for its time and made even more passionately. If ever you plan to visit Chicago, you simply can not not not miss this one. Take my word for it.

Following this awe striking tour, we were in for another pretty tour of Oak Park Library. A library that is hardly just a library. It’s a knowledge treasure, an art gallery, a technology park, kid’s paradise and everything you think a library cannot be. The automatic book collection system and the sorting system were so cool. They even had a little garden on the top of their terrace. It is an amalgamation of art, science, technology, history, architecture…can you imagine what that would look like? No? You have to see it with your eyes to know what I’m talking about.

Day ended with Chicago’s most amazing pizza’s at Giordano’s. Just what we needed at the end of a hard day’s job.

               

Monday, 30 April

Monday, 30^th April

After taxiing around for 2 days, our trip finally took off the runway on Monday. After a lovely breakfast with Bob and Merilyn, I was dropped off at Marie’s place by Bob. We then walked up to the train station and took a train to downtown Chicago to go to the Art Institute. 

The train ride was a different experience. I would not say the trains were in the best of their condition but yes, the efficiency was good. In spite of a Monday morning, the train was not crowded, which shows that it’s a least preferred commuting vehicle. People prefer to use their own transport than depend on public transport systems. The impression I got was that only those who cannot afford their own vehicle would use a public transport. The train went above a lot of industrial areas and also some slums around.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed every bit of the experience.

So finally we reached the Art Institute where Marie’s friend Marie Pierre, an art enthusiast and a freelance lecturer of art, was waiting for us at the gates. Marie took us in to a completely different world of paintings and life of these painters. The collection of the ‘Impressionists’ was remarkable at the institute. Listening to the stories and emotions behind the paintings of some of the great painters such as Monet, Picasso, Seurat, Van Gogh, took us on a different plane altogether. It was an out of this world experience.

Then after lunch at the Institute, our coordinator Marie Olmos, took us on a walking tour around downtown Chicago and showed us beautiful buildings with architectural brilliance. After the big fire which burned down practically the whole of Chicago, this city stood up in no time into an architectural wonder. It was not hard to believe that Chicago was blessed with such great Architects.

The day ended just right with all of our host families gathering together at the Greek Island Restaurant to enjoy the most sumptuous Greek food I have ever had. I don’t think the bakhalawa tastes that good in Greece as well.