A busy weekend kept me from updating the blog. Brace for a long post… đ Oh and please check the other posts, I have added a few photos.The last couple of days were heavenly with good sunshine and no chilly winds. Is summer here finally? On Thursday evening Shanghai and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago since Thursdays and Fridays, between 5 and 8 pm, the entry is free. On other days you need to pay $18.
The museum is quite huge; itâs got around three floors with art from Europe, Asia and Africa. We only covered the ground floor, which had European paintings from Medieval to Impressionistic times. I guess Shanghai didnât find it too amusing since she dismissed Camille Pisarroâs paintings on snow as âshoddyâ and Van Goghâs âThe Bedroomâ as âdisorganized,â which had me in splits. But the highlight of the ground floor is Fullerton Hall, which has a plaque commemorating Swami Vivekanandaâs speech in Chicago, which he gave in 1893. We couldnât cover it, since it was very crowded. We only covered most of ground floor so there is still quite a bit to see. I plan to finish seeing it in parts by going every Thursday and Friday since itâs close to our office.
The next day, Thaatha, Paati and I went to receive K/G. The flight was delayed by around two and a half hours and by the time we reached home it was nearly 10 pm. But the next day K/G was fine enough to come with me for lunch to a place called Thai Aroma, which was flexible with vegetarian options (here is the menu and the one on W North Ave is where I went to). It is around three blocks away from our place. K/Gâs leg is still healing from an accident so itâs slow walking everywhere with her. But that gives me a chance to soak in the surroundings more. Perhaps thatâs what made me notice that a lot of restaurants, including the one we were going to, had BYOB written on their front window. I just found out that it stands for Bring Your Own Bottle/Beer/Beverage and in some cases it can even be BYOW, which is Bring Your Own Wine. There is even a site dedicated to BYOBs, which seems to be a big concept here in US in general. Am still learning about it.
Post lunch K/G was tired so I let her rest and went with Shanghai to see Harpo Studios where the Oprah Winfrey show takes place. Oprah fans wouldnât need more explanation, but for others, Oprah Winfrey has a cult following and her talk show is equally a rage. She addresses a wide range of issues and a lot if them have women as the focus.
On Sunday, K/G, Shanghai and I went to explore a Best Buy store nearby. Itâs around three or four stops away by Bus No 8 from Halsted. The street that we went to, that is N Clark Street, was chockfull of restaurants catering to different cuisines. We went to Sultanâs Market yesterday, which serves Lebanese food. I had one of the BEST falafels I have ever tasted and for around 6$ it was good deal because it was very filling. I have noted that if you eat at âSingle Digit Restaurantsâ ( my own category), that is restaurants with food priced under $10, the food is worth it. Anything up to $6 is doubly special. So now we are on a quest to find SDRs and in fact it is reasonably easy. Just yesterday along N Clark, we found at least a handful of them and there was Turkish, Italian and Mediterranean among the ones we found.
While returning from N Clark we got into the wrong bus but thanks to that we rode along a different road altogether, and oh boy! That had a restaurant every two seconds apart. And get this â it had everything from Indian to African to Moroccan to Mexican. So thanks to the wrong bus we found a new road, which was food paradise. More info on that on exploring further.
Finally managed to reach home after a one-hour bus ride but that was worth it. Something like finding your best friend through a wrong number. Well, it was a weekend well spent …
