It is Monday! I woke up in my hotel room in the 26th floor and saw that the sun is shining. This is not what I expected for Chicago. My program today will have a lot of walkin. But first, let’s have breakfast.
The breakfast in the hotel costed $20 dollars. An open-buffet. This is not much more than what I paid yesterday @ Kanela $18. But my human nature deals differently with an open-buffet. Since I was there around 8:00 am, I had time to eat slowly and fill my stomach with $20 worth of food. I think I exaggerated. I had 3 breakfasts which I don’t even do at home if I have a full fridge. Juan, the waiter kept pouring me Orange juice till I was radiating Vitamin C. I guess I had a liter or so! It took me a bit more than an hour and the Wall Street Journal newspaper. I picked up recently a new interest in newspapers specially in places where I travel.
After breakfast I was so full that I could barely walk! I started walking slowly in the city towards the Navy Pier, one of the top attractions in Chicago:
Only a couple of tourists were there. A lot of fishermen though. They simply sat there with a hole in the ice that covered the lake. I noticed some fish that seemed frozen on the surface! I asked one of them if the fish froze because of the low temperature and he told me that people just didn’t throw these fish back into the hole!
I walked more around the city to the Millennium Park where there was a funny open stage and the famous “Bean”:
I was not walking with any aim. I didn’t have neither a map nor a phone and I just walked randomly and found myself in front of the Chicago public library. I have a certain affinity to visit public libraries and see how they look like inside so I entered to find a violin concert that is open for public. Although most of the people were old and half of them were sleeping in their seats, I was entertained by thinking about such opportunities in big cities. I soon left the hall (I have to admit I was bored very soon) and went back to the hotel.
Walking in the city of Chicago, one can’t help but thinking about living here. Having a job in one of the huge and modern Northwestern hospitals in downtown chicago, having an apartment in a skyscraper, and probably overworking and ending up sad and lonely. LOL. Success can mean accomplishing your goals. Then you make other goals, you succeed etc. However, I look up to people who have manaegd to obtain and retain a sense of self-love, content and satisfaction regardless of their measurable achievements or materialistic posesssions.
It is a topic I discussed later in the day with my friend Joan. Another friend of mine in Catalonia that lives here since 5 years or so. We had a long walk after I picked him up from his work in the Hospital and discussed his experience in living in the state and filled each other in about what happened in our lives since we last met more than 7 years ago! Joan is a man of awareness and spirituality in my mind. I remember when I met him just coming back from India and staying there 6 months instead of his original 1 month plan. This story was somehow always in my memory when I considered travel flexibility.
Later this evening I met Imma again. She suggested that we have a drink and dinner in a nearby Jazz Club. We spent there a couple of hours exchanging more stories and ideas with a live Jazz band playing on the stage. The place had some poeple but was not full which made it a cozy place for nice conversations. Meeting Joan and Imma was the highlight of my Chicago time. There is nothing in the world like connecting with smart and good hearted people that you like. I felt fortunate.
