One Day in Chicago

As we inch through the underpass, ever closer to the off-ramp, I turn up Sinatra to drown the clangor outside the windows. “Chicago, Chicago, I’ll show you around…”

The Blues Brothers and The Bulls, The Staples Singers and The Smashing Pumpkins, Gangsters and Jazz, Second City and Art Deco, sausages and deep dish… “Bet your bottom dollar you lose the blues in Chicago…”

We’ve got one day to breeze through the Windy City. There’s the architecture, the galleries, the dining and the shopping, and we can’t possibly do it all. “Chicago, Chicago, why I just grin like a clown…”

We decide to just nip at the edges, off the beaten path, and save our deep dive into a wholesale tour of this legendary American city for another visit. In the meantime, the great debate is this: Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s?

I’ve got a confession to make. I’ve never eaten deep dish pizza before. I’ve always preferred a thin crunchy cornmeal crust like I could find in New York. Recent trips to Detroit have enabled the culinary segue. Detroit style, with it’s thick layering and crunchy cheesy edges seems to be the Goldilocks between the thin crust and the deep dish.

We arrive at Lou Malnati’s, the most famous deep-dish institution in Chicago with a history as rich as it’s sauce. In short order, our individually-sized pies are served. The tomato sauce is indeed rich, even sweet, and the cheese is so gooey and stretchy, but the buttery crust we’ve heard so much about…tastes pre-made, not at all fresh. I’m sensing the shells are stocked, not baked-to-order. Anti-climactic as it is, we do feel as stuffed as a deep-dish pizza and are ready to venture onwards. Next time, we’ll check out rival institution, Giordano’s and then the one that locals recommend to me, Pequod’s Pizza. Stay tuned!

Chicago is gorgeous in the fall. Crimson and ochre jazz hands dance on the branches, while the sun reflects off the Chicago River and glass buildings that line it like we’re in a hall of mirrors. Chicago has a museum for every subject from music to the mob, but today is “Kid’s Choice,” so we weave through downtown shops, of which I’m tempted by each one, until we reach the Medieval Torture Museum.

We don headphones and listen to stories from yesteryear about the ignominious fate of real and suspected criminals. No detail is spared. Throughout this show-and-tell exhibit, each installation is accompanied by another gory story. All manners of execution from impalement to decapitation, and Columbian necktie to Iron Maiden, are life-sized for maximum cringe. Interestingly, visitors here range from couples to families. For an off-the-wall time-out from the cosmopolitan pulse along State Street, this is a step back in time to an unfathomable past that pre-dates persnickety things like liberty and due process. The wide-eyed conversations afterwards of “can you imagine…” extend our experience to humorous ends.

In keeping with the biological theme, we head to the International Museum of Surgical Science. Chicago is world renowned for its medical school, so it’s no surprise that med-students frequent here. Our visit is disarmingly enlightening.

Installations include the history of the X-ray and its use during wartime to locate bullets in the body; and a history of blood transfusions, evolving from using a quill to using a needle, with transfusions between dogs and humans, to just humans. Paintings, books, ancient skulls and a replica of an apothecary are interspersed between profiles of iconic figures like Florence Nightingale, pioneer and founder of modern nursing, to Seishu Hanaoka, the discoverer of general anesthesia.

Research and methods are explored from primitive to advanced treatments and the international co-operation that exists today, including studies of human responses to space travel. For example, one of the effects of micro-gravity is increased pressure on the optic nerve, which can blur vision. This affects 50% of astronauts.

As NASA pursues travel to Mars, astronauts will need to be more self-reliant with respect to medical challenges, like loss of bone density in space. Gravity, radiation and isolation all pose threats to health in space. Health in space is a universal interest.

This exhibit is developed and produced by the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency. Canada has been integral in the development of technology to measure and monitor neutron radiation in the space station as it collides with cosmic rays. The presentation of information elicits questions we never thought to ask.

Chicago is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book in which there seems to be infinite possibilities to whet every appetite, satisfy every curiosity, and inspire every mind. There is no shortage of evocative places to visit, gastronomic delights to taste, and pretty walks to enjoy. This is a bucket list destination chock full of experiences to shake the doldrums and check every box.