Spring might be on the way, but it is still raining. Museum Campus in the rain is still quite impressive though!
Ten minutes after the next picture was taken the skyscrapers were covered in fog.
Not quite ‘Spring green’ yet
Category: Living Abroad
Five Impressions from Ann Arbor, Michigan
1.) It should really be renamed UMICHville.
The University of Michigan has basically taken over the whole town- from the sprawling university buildings to the prevalence of student housing. Often you pass a large house only to notice the Greek letters labeling it to be a sorority or fraternity house. This is before we even get to sports!
Pretty sculptures on campus
Mirrored buildings- maybe it makes the city look bigger…
Guess the animal…
2.) Sports are a BIG thing here. Ann Arbor has one of the biggest stadiums in the world, and it’s simply a university! The sports complex is massive and the billboards rival those at most professional arenas.
3.) If you want to fit in, make sure you wear some Michigan stash. It’s basically a local uniform!
They even have it in different languages…
They even do ‘Wolverine’ coats for children…
4.) There are a lot of breweries and bars, but they are mostly full or table service – finding a drink is harder than you think.
5.) They like coloured houses. All colours, any colours – ranting from tasteful to terrifying. College colors spread to house decoration as well.
Overall, a highly enjoyable weekend.
It is so loud here.
The downside of living in a city? Traffic.
You’d think that living 35 floors up you would become immune to it – especially having spent most of my life living next to a busy road. However it’s constant in the evenings – ambulances, police and fire vehicles, wind (despite the real reason for the ‘Windy City’ getting its name I can testify that it is definitely windy!). Add to that the defending sound of the L and you can barely hear yourself think.
Also car horns. Why do drivers think that hooting really loudly and repeatedly will sort things? Does that ever work? (Asking as a mom driver here).
Today we went in search of some more tranquil areas and ended up in the prairie district in the south of the city. It was very green and tree-lined – reminding me a lot of D.C., particularly Takoma. I would like to go back to D.C. at some point soon but until then this was a nice reminder!
We then headed down to Chinatown and went to get a quick snack – possibly choosing the least Chinese items in the shop…
Custard tart (Max)
Cream bun (me)
Back at home, we have chocolate chips, blueberries and maple syrup. It’s finally time for American pancakes!
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
A photo diary of sorts (despite it only being one day…)
Cow shaped cheese – all of Wisconsin in one item…
A flight of ice cream – 4 ice creams for $6!
It wouldn’t be Oktoberfest without Bratwurst and a stein of beer, whilst listening to polka music…
The Veterans Park
The art institute (shaped like a ship)
The Best Doughnuts in Chicago
So here it is. What you’ve all been waiting for!
The definitive listings of Chicago doughnuts, in reverse order!
8. Donut Delight
Sorry guys – there has to be a last place. We ordered a pineapple old fashioned and couldn’t taste pineapple…
7. Glazed and Infused
Similar to Donut Delight, there was just not enough flavor. We ordered a Nutella Old Fashioned and it was rather stodgy and though fine, it’s not somewhere I’d run back to.
6. Mariano’s
The supermarket doughnut ranks higher than several other shops for two reasons – price and amount of bacon ( see image below).
That is a bacon maple donut.
Also these doughnuts are $0.70. Bargain!
5. Scafuri’s Bakery
This is your childhood in a doughnut- it’s soft, tasty and includes sprinkles. All round, a very successful baked good.
4. Beaver’s Donuts
Doughnut holes covered in caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and crushed nuts. Out of the top four these were the softest, possibly most greasiest of the top ones, but still very tasty and good value at $3 for 4 holes (5 in our case!)
3. Doughnut Vault
These rightly earn third place due to three things:
- Cuteness of shop
- Size of donut
- Actual fruit flavor (note the blueberry old fashioned which was the best fruit donut of the lot!
How cute is this? It is tiny inside as well – there is about room for 4 people!
2. Stan’s Donuts
Stan’s almost made it to the No. 1 spot and still does an amazing donut – the chocolate orange old fashioned and the Boston creme donut being of particular note. It also has a full display of Kitchenaids and makes milkshakes with a donut on top.
And now we come to the top spot…
1. Do-rite Donuts
We weren’t sure about the top spot – Stan’s was still pretty unbeatable and whilst we agreed that Do-Rite was close, it wasn’t an outright winner.
Until this.
The best donut in Chicago.
Do-Rite’s carrot cake donut. Amazing.
Why is it so amazing you ask? I give you three reasons:
- No raisins – the worst part of carrot cake
- Great taste and amazing cream cheese frosting
- Softest texture of any donut
Oh, and coffee is only a dollar. Can’t beat it.
If carrot cake isn’t your thing, there is also apple fritters:
and chocolate Valhrona donuts
The carrot cake has to be number 1 though!
I’m sorry for the lack of posts – I will try to get back to more consistent posting soon!
The One Where WIFI Spoils (A Bit Of) Our Weekend!
This weekend was annoyingly quite frustrating in some ways – we had to wait around for a lot of things and so missed a lot of the Air and Water Show! However, we have explored some more areas and tried some very good cookies!
Saturday morning was shopping time, so back to Mariano’s. This time I have a picture of Max’s favorite aisle!
We then went to try out the Chicago French Market for lunch. Our aim was to find lunch for under $7 however we quickly realized that sadly that was not hugely realistic and we ended up hoping it by a dollar… however we did end up with this rather delicious build-your-own gyros with pork and herbed potatoes – so big that it couldn’t be rolled up!
$8 – not too far over our budget!
Afterwards we headed downtown to Millenium Park and wandered around there for a little bit – we had been there earlier in the week but it was great to see it without thousands of people filling the grounds! (Though I would have been quite happy to still have the Broadway music blasting out!)
After walking past Buckingham Fountain again we then walked up to the bean for the first time – we say it last time we were here but hadn’t yet been to visit it! It was hideously busy but I still got some interesting angles.
This one looks like a face to me!
One of the main aims we had for this week was to start getting involved in social activities out in our local area, and so to this end we went to a local stand-up comedy web at a local bar, the Haymarket. We got there quite early and we slightly put off by the seeming lack of stand up comedy… However, we headed to the back and were met by a very enthusiastic whirlwind called Amelia, who told us that we were indeed in the right place but they were still finishing their lunch! That suited us fine though as they had a very extensive drinks menu, including floats!
Five beers (4oz) ranging from Apple to Lime!
The comedy itself was part of a series called VS – where two opposing teams battle it out in 6 rounds. This week – James Brown vs Charlie Brown! Guess who was chosen to be the judge of the contest?
That’s right – Max again gets pulled out for audience participation! This time, Charlie Brown triumphed, in no small part down to a singing Woodstock sketch!
After the event we hung around and chatted to the cast, specifically Amelia and Aaron from Team Charlie Brown (pictured) and sampled some more of the bars drinks including a purple blackberry beer – a good choice!
The purple colour doesn’t really come through but it was purple!
The next day sadly was characterized by huge issues with the internet – after one night of working perfectly- it died. Completely. I rang AT&T who were great, sent someone out the next day and said that it was probably a quick job…
Five hours later…
They said it couldn’t be fixed the day…
So we went out for cookies. Cookies fix everything. Especially when they look like this!
To make it even better it’s stuffed with Nutella:
The Warm Belly Bakery in West Loop needs everyone to go there. The staff are lovely, the cookies are huge and delicious and the coffee’s pretty good as well! They also do a Tuesday deal where if you take a picture and tweet/instagram etc it, you get a second cookie for free – I think that will happen. A lot.
Also this:
This is an ube cookie – purple yam to the rest of us. I had no idea what it was and questioned the guy, and after a very accurate description (think marshmallow flavor) – he gave me a free one to sample! Not that I needed another reason to go back but it didn’t hurt!
By this point due to all the palava with the WIFI, our view of the air and water show had been reduced to the few planes seen yesterday and hearing their deafening ‘boom’ overhead throughout the day, just serving to remind us of what we were missing! However we decided that we needed to get some air and see some water, and so headed out along the river walk towards Navy Pier. There aren’t a huge amount of pictures – it was quite grey – but we did see some of the many yachts and a huge ferry boat on route.
Also, a hockey sighting! We have found where pre-season practices and I’m getting so excited to see some matches soon (especially as it seems like full season is expensive…)
First weekend in Chicago, Part II
So, on Sunday we decided to continue to walk around the downtown area, but this time to head north along the river and up to Navy Pier. We started by walking through the Financial District and looking at the huge buildings around us, most of which we still cannot name!
We were looking for a Verizon store to sort out phones at the time, but ended up realizing that Sunday was not the best day for it – they were all closed! However in our quest we did find these sculptures made out of cans!
Avocado
The world
A Chicago hot dog and fries
Afterwards we headed up past the Trump tower and on further where we came upon a statue which from behind looked for all the world like Abraham Lincoln talking to Jed Bartlett – that would have been an amazing statue…
Alas from the front, whilst we were right with Lincoln, it was not a West Wing tribute! However there were some amazing buildings behind it including the Chicago Tribune building.
We then headed to Navy Pier, further up north from the waterfront we were at yesterday. This is one of the most touristy areas and boy was it busy today! It was also clearly a great place for families – a lot of food, ice cream and games for all ages.
A foam-blower
The Big Wheel at Navy Pier
The view back towards the city
Next we headed to Ohio Beach which was one of the strangest feelings – being on a beach, complete with bar and sand but with the city in the background.
The panorama is a bit small but it gives you an idea of the scale!
Next we needed water – it was so hot! So we headed back towards the centre for lunch tacos and refillable drinks – this plate of tacos, southwestern quinoa and vegetable chili was less than $6!
We then headed back to the apartment but slowly, via some more of the central areas.
The Corn-on-the-Cob car parks and apartments
We ended up having to do an evening target run, but it gave us another chance to walk around – we want to make the most of the nice evenings as I’m sure that soon there will not be any!
The First Weekend in Chicago – Part 1
(I’ve split it into two parts because otherwise it may get a little long…)
So… first job was food and household appliance shopping – first stop was Target! I can never get over the scale of these places – it’s got everything! However the locations of items can be odd – we spent about 15 minutes hunting for freezer bags.
Then we headed to Little Italy through Greektown in order to find our favorite cafe so far, Scafuri’s. I was sad to find initially that they seemed to have stopped selling their amazing cannoli – they have been an abiding memory since last time! Instead I drowned my sorrows with this delicious chocolate yeasted donuts (with echoes of ‘funny drops’ chocolate – can’t get used to calling it funfetti!)
I also had a coconut-chai latte which whilst delicious was probably quite expensive… not a treat for every week!
After that we investigated Jewel-Osco, a supermarket. Very nice but it was expensive and we had to walk about a mile and a half with heavy bags! However it did have a wing bar…
Afterwards we went on a walk to the centre. We headed through the downtown area and then walked to Buckingham Fountain which was actually running this time – last time there was no water. It’s a lot more impressive now!
The Buckingham Fountain
This building worries me…
The Loop
We also sampled the first of our Chicago delicacies – the hot dog, specifically the Polish. This is from Max’s Take-Out (we had to go there…) and were well worth it! I even went for all the toppings – mustard and all!
Max ate half the pickle after his fell off – they still aren’t my favorite things!
After this we then wandered along the waterfront to the Shedd Aquarium and on to the Adler Observatory. We didn’t go in at this point – we are saving that for winter!
The Shedd Aquarium’s big statue of a man with a fish.
The Adler Observatory – there were two weddings and associated photographs going in about 10 metres apart!
Lots of views of the skyline.
Here ends Saturday…
Chicago – Four days in!
So, we moved to Chicago! It’s all very exciting, slightly overwhelming at times – so much stuff is different – and the city life is a HUGE change! However, so far it’s all good – long may it continue!
Our flight was pretty uneventful apart from a mix-up with our seats at the check-in desk. However we ended up still able to sit together, just in a different part of the plane to everyone else. United is rather ‘old-school’ in terms of facilities – technically they had entertainment but it just started and then played through all the programmed – rather like a TV channel – I think BA for all their faults have spoiled us in this regard… However the flight was smooth, the ice-cream delicious so overall no complaints!
When we landed we got on a bus to go to the accommodation and drove straight into what I assumed was rush hour but was confidently informed was just ‘Chicago’! Don’t drive here seems to be the main suggestion… I did however knock about 18 states off my new number plate list – small things!
At the accommodation we we given our keys, shown the layout and then got into our room at which point we spent a long time marveling at the views! Chicago is so flat that you can see for miles and particularly at night the streetlights create a view I will not get tired of soon.
And then there is the view from our window…
Yep, it’s a pretty good start!
The Wayfaring Baker 