Mar. 30, 2009 - Chicago!
Many people love big cities. They love the many people, the many stores and the convenience of everything right at their fingertips. I on the other hand prefer wide open spaces with an abundance of nature and wildlife nearby.
So when my Nana, told me that she was taking me and my cousin to Chicago I was excited but not totally sure that I would like the big city. I kept remembering how when I was little I went to Chicago with my family and how I was so happy to get home to my normal sized house and yard, away from the tight spaces and the tall buildings.
But I found out that I had nothing to be unsure of. I absolutely loved my trip!
The first night we were there, we went out to dinner and then we went to the Hancock Building. It had 94 floors!!!! The elevator went up so fast that I got dizzy! But the view from the 94th floor was amazing. The whole city was lit up and you could see a long way. The outskirts of town were shining with light and the sky was covered with a golden haze.
Of course like usual I didn't get a picture.
The next day we walked to the Newberry Library so we could meet a friend of my Nana's who had a museum pass for the Art museum. When Kim got there after going through the new exhibit she took us up into the library. Now this library is no ordinary library. It is filled with books, scrolls, and documents from history. Kim after we got our library cards told us to look in the card catalog and on the computers for something we would want to look at. I had no idea about what I wanted to look up, so I just walked through the many rows of drawers and pulled out a drawer here and there and looked through the cards. After awhile I remember that I really like the president John Quincy Adams. I walked over to the A's and looked up his name but I really didn't find anything I wanted to look at.
I walked over to the computers where my cousin, Shelbi and Kim were looking at the computers there. After finding out that I hadn't found anything Kim showed me the things she had found. She had written the items on yellow slips of paper with the call number.
She had found letters written by Thomas Jefferson, an original map of the Louisiana purchase before it was purchased and some other items.
I decided to look at the letters and the map. Then Shelbi found some letters written by John Quincy Adams and a speech by him.
Then we walked up to the fourth floor where the reading rooms were. We walked in to a room that was separated into 3 parts. The first part contained a desk where a woman of Asian heritage was standing. Behind her there were two rooms with walls of glass. In the rooms were tables and at some of the tables men and women were sitting looking at books and papers, resting on large pieces of felt or a small shelf.
We gave slips of paper that told which item we wanted to look at first to the lady. She gave us rules to read and told us that they would bring the item as soon at possible.
After ten minutes they brought the first item in. The letters written by Thomas Jefferson! It was awesome to see the original letters that Jefferson actually wrote over two hundred years ago. I couldn't read it very well, the script being so different from what I was used to reading and most of the letters I just skimed the lines but when Kim read some of them and found a wonderful quote I tried to read them. It was so cool to read the actual words! I have often read quotes from him and other founding fathers of our country but I have never read the original documents. I was holding an actual piece of history!
Soon after my companions got their items. One of them was an old scroll of Esther. The scroll was incased in a carved metal cylinder. The scroll was made of animal skin was written in Hebrew and the edges were cut out into shapes of birds and flowers. It was beautiful!
Shelbi looked at a hand written music score and Kim looked at a book filled with all kind of different paper from Japan. I was even able to read letters written by John Quincy Adams but alas we had to leave before we could look at everything we wanted. It was getting late and we hadn't eaten lunch and we needed to go to the Art Museum.
Kim drove us to the Art Museum and we went through selected exhibits. We looked at minitiure rooms from different periods of time, strolled through a room filled with black and white photgraphs that depicted many famous people which included, Helen Keller, Elizabeth Taylor and Muhamand Ali, then we walked through the Edvard Munch Exhibit, that was a little depressing. This artist painted a lot of painting about death and sorrow and sadness and love so I was kind glad to get out of that exhibit.
Then we took a bus to our hotel to change clothes for the play. We were going to the play "Our Town". A play about the daily life in a town in the early 1900s. They used very little props just tables and chairs and ladders. The audience had to imagine what the actors were doing and the scenery around them. The best thing about the play was the fact that David Schwimmer (he has been in the t.v. show "Friends" and Madagasgar 2) was in it! It was so cool to be so close to a famous actor!
After the play we went to go get ice cream then we walked back to the hotel.
The next day we packed up and put our bags in the car......then we went shopping!!!!
I don't usually go shopping so it was very interesting to see all the name brand clothing stores that I would never think of buying from unless they had a BIG sale!
After we were done shopping and grabbed a lunch we left Chicago and hit the road.
Shelbi and I had a lot of fun in the car. We read books, took pictures of ourselves and listened to Nana tell stories. It was so nice to be with them and talk with them and to get to know them better. I don't see them often because we live in different states so it was nice to be with them for a couple days.
Sorry but I didn't take any good postable pictures. I know I am a slacker.
But thanks for reading!
~Jess
Comments
Apr. 1, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Eyebright
Wow! It sounds like you had a fabulous time! My grandparents have taken me a lot of places, too, and that is so fun.
Holding those old documents must have been really neat. I would have been afraid of breaking them! :)
Have a very bright, very cheerful day!
Miss Eyebright
Apr. 1, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Posted by AnAmericanGirl
Thanks! :) Most Arby's aren't as nice as ours, but I'm not trying to brag. I work about 15 hours a week. I worked on Monday and yesterday and I work again on Friday. Thanks for the comment.
God bless
Love,
Hannah
Apr. 1, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Posted by alizona
Sounds like lots of fun!! When exactly did you go?
