Globe Corner Blogs

Too broke and busy to travel abroad, I instead took three small trips around the country this summer.

It took the Pitchfork Music Festival to get me there, but I finally visited Chicago! I’ve talked about visiting Chicago for four years; the first two years I was promising to visit my best high school friend at U. Chicago, the latter years promising to visit my best friend from college. I was certain a trip to Chicago would be my swan song, but I finally went to the Windy City in July.

Traveling with a bunch of friends and going to see two other good friends results in a certain type of travel: few “cultural” events (no trip to the Sears Tower), easy food (no dinners with Rick Bayless), and lots of indecision. On the flip side, visiting such good friends in Chicago gave the city a more personal feeling – I explored their neighborhoods, saw their local coffee shops and fast food favorites, and had a wonderful home cooked meal.

We had two full days in Chicago. The first was dedicated to Pitchfork – a 3-day indie rock music festival held in Union Park. Despite being an incredibly inefficiently run concert (future attendees: get there early, go with your ticket, and don’t bring a big camera!), Pitchfork was exactly what my friends and I were looking for: a place to sit outside and catch up while listening to live music and drinking the local Goose Island 312 beer.

The second full day we spent walking. We walked from Ukrainian Village (Uki Village to locals) to Millennium Park and then up North Michigan Avenue. Millennium Park is home to a Frank Gehry designed outdoor music venue, some very cool contemporary art, and Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture, more popularly called The Bean. The Park is also right next to the modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. The building was designed by Renzo Piano, the architect of Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and has some nice views of the lake and the skyline.

Since I didn’t experience the city’s biting winter cold, I really enjoyed being in the outdoors in Chicago and in some of the city’s various parks. I hope to return before another four years have gone by.

Read more: Art & Architecture, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Millennium Park, Pitchfork, Travel


Jess is a GCB alum and now contributes to the travel blog as often as she can. Jess attended Middlebury College so she loves the Green Mountain State. She also studied abroad in Paris for a semester and has traveled through much of western Europe and the UK. Her most recent travels include trips to Portland, OR, Los Angeles, CA and Spain (Madrid and Andalusia). She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS