Adler Planetarium, Hancock Tower and a Deep Dish Pizza

Finally a day where it did not rain all the time :) In fact during the day it was quite lovely weather. I think, understandably, this made us more eager to go out and have a look about.

Our first stop today was the Adler Planetarium, where we will learned a little bit more about space.  Before that we had a look at the Chicago skyline from our vantage point. The Adler Planetarium is on a peninsula... I am not sure you call this a peninsula, since it is in a lake... a great lake, but nonetheless a lake... Nevermind, the view from there is very cool. It is right next to "Soldier Field", the American Football Stadium of the Chicago Bears...

Isi in front of the Adler Planetarium. Space "Space is Freaking Awesome!" Apparently :)

The NASA Space Program seems to always fill the Americans with pride and it really shows. The Adler Planetarium is like those science museums that you can also find in Europe, but about space.

The top floor has a little stand for each planet of the solar system, its distance from the sun, comparable size to Earth, some of the moons that it has, as well as, a piece of rock from it if possible (Mars and the Moon for example).
In addition, they explain about crater impacts in form of a miniature experiment of it. Check out the video below to understand. I must say, I tried to not let Isi in on what will happen, but she knew me well enough already so that she is just "not" impressed, at all. When I did it at first, I got such a scare, that I almost pee'd my pants a little.
To round it all off, we were able to navigate a digital animation of the Mars surface with a joystick.

 

The bottom floor was dedicated to the historical events of space flight and astronomy. The story of Apollo 13 featured quite prominently. For those of you, who are not familiar with (like myself before that visit), the first attempt to visit the moon led to a live program of "how do we get 3 US men back down to earth on live television"? This was due to a material fault, as one oxygen tank caught fire.
The detail that got me the most is, that the family of the lead astronaut actually had a live feed of the conversation of NASA with the astronaut, so they were actively listening in on the discussion on how to save the man's life. Seriously, heavy stuff.

Isi and I from a different perspective ;)

The historical parts on astronomy (Galileo, Kopernicus, etc.) were not too interesting in our mind. I would have liked to see the conclusions of their research put into more context, not so much the tools. The tools are very pedestrian to our standards now, but the conclusions stood the test of time. Towards the end, they did something like that by showing small clips of scientists discussing near philosophical questions, such as "What was before the Big Bang?". The exciting thing is that the answers posed more questions than they actually answered.

 

The last part of the visit was the 30 minute show called "Cosmic Shining", where you sit down in a room. Recline your chair back to a lying position and look at the domed ceiling, which will be the cinema screen. Then they project the night sky on to it and talk about constellations and what we know about the galaxies. The soothing, astronomical music gives the right mood, the deep sombre voice of the narrator explains about the Horsehead Nebula and how Orion is the cradle of new stars... and I fell asleep :-D
Seriously, this was very well done, but for people still wrestling with jet lag, this was the best 15 minute snooze that you could ever imagine :-D Isi had to nudge me awake, because I was softly snoring... ok, remove the "softly". Isi does not allow this article to be published otherwise :-D in her words "You never snore softly"...

After the trip to the Planetarium, we made our way to the Museum of Surgery where we met up with Serena and little Thomas again. Of course, the museum was closed, open all other days but Mondays. So we decided to stroll back into town along the lake shore... which by the way has the feel of the ocean. This is the weird thing. It is "Lake" Michigan, but man that lake is big!

The Lake shore of Lake Michigan

The statue in front of the Museum of Surgery. Sadly, it was closed :(

Back in the centre of town, we strolled around until we reached Hancock Tower, which is the black one in the image of the skyline up on top on the left. Like all tall towers in cities, you can go to the top and look at the city in a 360° view. We only went to the bar to have a drink, because as usual with these towers, it was rather expensive to go up. The view from up top was not bad. I think, we actually saw all the way to Wisconsin, not quite Kenosha, but Wisconsin at least...

A View from the Hancock Tower overlooking Chicago. Is that Wisconsin all the way in the back there?

Back down and a couple of souvenir shops later (As usual, we were looking for a miniature token for our skyline at home), it was already 17:30 and we met up with Mattia who finished work for dinner in Gino's, the first place in Chicago to make a deep dish pizza.

Just to give you a rough idea of the high rise when in the centre of town

The start of the well known Route 66 here in Chicago

What is a deep dish pizza? Why, I am glad you asked as it is something typical from Chicago that tries to combine the idea of pizza with a cake... Essentially, the increased the height of the crust, so that they can stuff more meat, cheese, tomato sauce and other delicious things on top. Most likely very unhealthy, but man it tastes good :-D

Deep Dish Deliciousness

After that, we were stuffed, tired and decided to go back home. The way back to our place of sleeping always takes at least 45 minutes and one stop over between L train and busses, so again we managed to get absolutely soaked to round off the day. Just for the 20 minutes we were waiting for the bus stop, the weather decided to start pouring it down. This is getting less and less fun with each new day ;)

We arrived home and were so tired that I did not even manage to write my blog entry on the day, but waited until I slept and here we are. Today, our main attraction will be to go to the Wrigley Field and watch the Chicago Cubs play the Philadelphia Flyers in a match of Baseball. I always thought the Cubs were the self-proclaimed worst team of the league, but, in fact, they won the title last year...

Interesting day today, a lot of impressions. I am looking forward to seeing me some American sports. Take care, guys, and let us know in the comment section if you want us to have a look at something specific.