Is Chicago, is not Chicago, but it really is.
Chicago is an awesome town.
Melbourne, you have some serious competition for my affections and I haven't even seen New York (or Las Vegas) yet.
The city is massive. First, the "CBD" feels huge, I've barely seen anything. Next, the buildings themselves are huge. They simply dwarf Melbourne's buildings. I guess with a city population of over two million (that's just the CBD, folks) the buildings have to be massive.
The layout of the city is amazing. The city and suburbs are plotted on nice big squares. Roads stretch in straight lines to the city's limits or as far as the eye can see which, most often, is to the horizon because this town is flat. Only once did I see a suggestion of a hill, a minor rise in the street level, but this turned out to simply be an overpass.
There seems to be no issue with a major train system travelling above the city streets, nor with a second tier of traffic below the first. One gets the sense that this city is at least trying to break the two-dimensional limitation of city planning. The trains, by the way, may feel a little shoddy or be less than aesthetically pleasing but they far exceed the functionality of Melbourne's system. The number of carriages adapts to the volume of traffic throughout the day and the trains run as often as every five minutes. Even off-peak trains are no more than ten minutes apart.
The people here are polite. Everybody smiles and says "thank you." Melbourne, you could learn some manners.
The love-fest ends with the food. I'm not a foody; most of you know that. Whether it's just Chicago, or the whole country, but even I can tell that the higher quality food here would be considered average back home.
My gracious hosts, for example, were excited to visit a highly reviewed burger joint by the name of Kuma's. The atmosphere was great, the service was excellent and the place was packed. The burgers themselves? Well, for the price, they were pretty good. But I've had better burgers back home in places that don't even try to be that good. It saddens me to think that Kuma's, while good, represented the best in the area, that is, nowhere else in town could offer anything better.
Grocery shopping? The supermarkets here are an excellent example of getting what you pay for. The higher end, organic stores are pricey and the cheaper places definitely have some weird, if not wrong, foods. (Why would you sugar-coat the sultanas in Sultana Bran?)
In the end, my foody-advice would be try most eateries or restaurants once, then find a way to buy fresh, local goods and cook for yourself. The caveat is perhaps not to try so many things in a short space of time (but that's a lesson you may need to learn for yourself).
The galleries here? Well, that's a story for another time. Let's just say that one great gallery outweighed a number of poor ones. Seriously, I adored this exhibition:
http://www.mcachicago.org/eliasson/
Damn, this was just meant to be a one or two paragraph update. I guess I had much more to say than I thought.
Melbourne, you have some serious competition for my affections and I haven't even seen New York (or Las Vegas) yet.
The city is massive. First, the "CBD" feels huge, I've barely seen anything. Next, the buildings themselves are huge. They simply dwarf Melbourne's buildings. I guess with a city population of over two million (that's just the CBD, folks) the buildings have to be massive.
The layout of the city is amazing. The city and suburbs are plotted on nice big squares. Roads stretch in straight lines to the city's limits or as far as the eye can see which, most often, is to the horizon because this town is flat. Only once did I see a suggestion of a hill, a minor rise in the street level, but this turned out to simply be an overpass.
There seems to be no issue with a major train system travelling above the city streets, nor with a second tier of traffic below the first. One gets the sense that this city is at least trying to break the two-dimensional limitation of city planning. The trains, by the way, may feel a little shoddy or be less than aesthetically pleasing but they far exceed the functionality of Melbourne's system. The number of carriages adapts to the volume of traffic throughout the day and the trains run as often as every five minutes. Even off-peak trains are no more than ten minutes apart.
The people here are polite. Everybody smiles and says "thank you." Melbourne, you could learn some manners.
The love-fest ends with the food. I'm not a foody; most of you know that. Whether it's just Chicago, or the whole country, but even I can tell that the higher quality food here would be considered average back home.
My gracious hosts, for example, were excited to visit a highly reviewed burger joint by the name of Kuma's. The atmosphere was great, the service was excellent and the place was packed. The burgers themselves? Well, for the price, they were pretty good. But I've had better burgers back home in places that don't even try to be that good. It saddens me to think that Kuma's, while good, represented the best in the area, that is, nowhere else in town could offer anything better.
Grocery shopping? The supermarkets here are an excellent example of getting what you pay for. The higher end, organic stores are pricey and the cheaper places definitely have some weird, if not wrong, foods. (Why would you sugar-coat the sultanas in Sultana Bran?)
In the end, my foody-advice would be try most eateries or restaurants once, then find a way to buy fresh, local goods and cook for yourself. The caveat is perhaps not to try so many things in a short space of time (but that's a lesson you may need to learn for yourself).
The galleries here? Well, that's a story for another time. Let's just say that one great gallery outweighed a number of poor ones. Seriously, I adored this exhibition:
http://www.mcachicago.org/eliasson/
Damn, this was just meant to be a one or two paragraph update. I guess I had much more to say than I thought.