Chicago

Chicago, the third (was 2nd for a long time) city of the United States of America, in Illinois, is the capital of the American midwest. Sitting by the lake Michigan, one of the great lakes, it is one of the iconic city of the united states, plentiful in skyscrapers and exhaling a stronger American atmosphere than the other great city that we visited: San Francisco.

Visits

In late August (2014) after the ICPS in Austin, Texas, with Carlos Sánchez and Blanca Silva. These are some pictures from this trip:

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  Chicago's skyline.
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  It is a city of skyscrapers,
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  of bridges,
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  (opening ones)
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  and of American grandeur.
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  Combining all three makes Chicago.
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  The Loop—the downtown elevated railroad—here at night, gives it a particular touch.
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  Elena with her favorite building (the golden top one) on the Magnificient mile.
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  The most impressive of Chicago is definitely the architecture.
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  The John Hancock Center (where we bought our Nikon D5300 that shot this picture) loosing its head in the clouds
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  and the view from the top, short of 344m, on a clearer day.
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  The Lake Point tower, overlooking Lake Michigan, looks small in comparison (197m).
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  The Aqua tower, one of the most pretty of the city, here shying behind two other buildings and the fog.
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  The Chicago Water tower is one of the rare buildings to have survived the great Chicago fire in 1871.
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  The Tribune tower, home of the , is one of the most iconic skyscrapers in the world.
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  We found the Chicago Picasso by chance.
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  A less known building.
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  Train station at the Field museum.
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  The city at dusk,
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  and at night.
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  Blues performance (by Louie Zagoras). The urban blues variation is popular in Chicago.

Field museum

There are various world class attractions in Chicago: the Art Institute of Chicago, the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium... We decided to visit the Field museum of Natural History, which features the biggest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. Although it tackles all of natural history and beyond, it can be seen as a tribute to the theory of evolution, walking you along an impressively reconstructed Phylogenetic tree of earth. It also hosts a copy of lucy (original is in Ethiopia, although not in display either).

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  Elena and Sue, the highlight of the museum.
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  The head is too heavy to be part of the skeleton. The original stands in this box instead.
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  A copy of Lucy's remains.
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  The crystals section, impossible to avoid with Elena.
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  The Beryl species (heliodor variety).
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  The coins section.

Elena, Carlos and Blanca saying Hi! from the DuSable Bridge.