October 17-27, 2008

I did a flurry of Midwest traveling for a couple weeks in October. My friend Monica and I took a weekend trip to Chicago so we could visit our college roommate Kara. The bus got caught in traffic on I-94 and we were hours late. We were unceremoniously dumped on the sidewalk in front of Union Station at 10 p.m. on a Friday night, with no idea where or how we were supposed to meet Kara. The streets were utterly deserted – except for a select few extraordinarily creepy individuals. We stood with our bags on a corner until the same shifty-eyed man passed back and forth in front of us for the fifth time, then just picked a direction and started walking.

The emptiness of the streets really surprised me after my experience in London, in which families and people of all ages could be found out and about till quite late. Granted we were in the middle of the business district, with nothing but office buildings all around. But there we were at the base of the Sears Tower, one of the most famous skyscrapers in the world, mobbed by tourists every day, and it was so shady. I never for one minute felt concerned about my safety in London, whether I was in Bloomsbury, Islington, Shoreditch, anywhere. Of course I never went to any truly run-down neighborhoods, but I never felt nervous to be a woman walking alone after dark. Chicago, though . . . made me feel very uncomfortable. And I wasn’t even alone! I was so, so glad when we finally connected with Kara under the El tracks and we could get away from downtown.

Despite a rather off-putting beginning, the rest of our visit went splendidly. Kara lives ten minutes north of the city in the Uptown neighborhood, with a great view of the parks and marinas fronting Lake Michigan. Over the weekend we wandered the waterfront as well as the cute neighborhood to the south, where Halloween decorations were in full force. I loved seeing all the carved jack-o-lanterns everywhere.

One night we made a special trip to Navy Pier. How fabulous, to have a mini-amusement park right in the city. I loved the massive, brightly lit Ferris wheel, and the famous fireworks show over Lake Michigan didn’t disappoint either. We tried to ride the swings but a girl apparently freaked out and tried to get off as the ride was about to start . . . so we ended up dangling for like 20 minutes before they let us off and shut down the ride. Weird. Oh well, at least we had fun twirling in the swings. Monica and Kara got very into it.

The next day we headed well into the sprawling neighborhoods to the west, on a random quest to find either the city’s Little Italy or its Polish quarter. This did not go nearly so well. We rode a bus a looooong way west, then got off basically in the middle of nowhere. I cannot remember why because the area certainly did not look in the slightest bit Italian or Polish. Then we walked. And walked and walked and walked. We had a good time chatting and laughing and studying Halloween decorations on our hours-long hike, but not once did we encounter anything that could have been construed as an ethnic neighborhood. At last dusk started to fall and we realized we were three young women on foot in unknown territory a long way from home. Yikes! So then commenced more walking just to find a bus, any bus.

I am sad to say that after London I was not impressed with Chicago’s transportation system. Clearly it works for the millions of people who live and work in the city, but the Loop? It covers so little territory! Just a few blocks! I still cannot figure out why it is so small. And buses seemed to come very infrequently and erratically, though that may have been just my perception. It’s just that after the extraordinary ease and convenience of the London subway and bus system, in which Tube stops seem to be around every corner even well outside the city center, nothing else can compare. I think I have been spoiled forever, alas. But I may very well end up living in Chicago/Evanston next year, and once I get used to the routes & time schedules I’m sure I will feel more confident in my ability to get around the city.

After Chicago I spent several days in Ann Arbor and an evening in Detroit to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Terrible reputation aside, I am quite fond of Detroit. Since I did my honors thesis on Detroit in its heyday in the 1920s I always view it with a bit of strange double vision, layering the historically thriving, vibrant metropolis over the current struggling urban center. I can’t see one without the other, see Detroit as it once was and could be again. There seems to be this pervading impression that Detroit is a ghost town but ahem, people do still live there. We had a great evening out in Greektown, and with Monica living in the city next year I’m sure I’ll visit more often.

The weekend was a flurry of activity, fitting in Cedar Point (the new roller coaster Maverick is amazing, I was absolutely screaming in terror throughout the whole thing) and a trip to Hillsdale for its annual treasure hunt. The hunt extends across the entire county along all kinds of crazy back roads and takes hours. It is fantastic. This was our third year doing it and although having two separate cars did not work out as well as planned (*cough* understatement), our two teams still placed in the top ten, which is incredible. Hillsdale is a beautiful county – quintessential southern Michigan, I always think – and I always love visiting, even if I am most familiar with the county’s dirt roads in pitch darkness.