First Journey inside the USA – Chicago (Final)

Well, this is the last post about my trip to Chicago, Illinois, but it’s no less exciting.

We started the day, it was a Saturday, saying goodbye to the hotel and the downtown. Our destination was The Field Museum near Michigan Lake. We thought that we could spend three hours inside the museum and see all the exhibits, but we were wrong. The museum is huge! We spent about six hours, and we still left some exhibits behind.

We started from the ground level, where we saw some sea mammals, one gorilla and the exhibition about ancient Egypt. We also came back to this level later to eat at MacDonald’s (fast and reliable).

After ancient Egypt, we went to the main level, where you have the main entrance with Sue (the T-Rex skeleton). On this floor, we saw almost everything; we started with ancient Americas, passing through the Northwest Coast and Arctic peoples, Pawnee Earth Lodge, and North American Indians. After that, we definitely walked through the nature section, and then we passed by the world of birds, world of mammals, Africa animals, lions of Tsavo, and reptiles and amphibians.

Our last floor was the upper level, where we saw the Evolving Planet exhibit, passed through the Dinosaur Hall, the plants of the World, some worldwide rocks and the Hall of Jade & Gems. But our last stop before going home was in the museum store. We bought one magnetic picture from the museum and a mug, and those items went into my collection. I try to have a magnetic picture and a mug from every special place or city that I visit.

We left the museum around 3:30 pm, and we still had four more hours to drive before reaching our home! It was an exhausting but very pleasurable day…..

Freezing……

The first thing that I remember from our third day in Chicago is the low temperature!  It was not too low, but the main problem was the wind.

We started our day with a short walk from our hotel to the Palmer Hotel at Chicago Downtown. The bus tour left that hotel around 10:30 am. The bus driver was an old man with a southern accent, who sometimes was difficult to understand for me but who was extremely kind. The tour started with showing us a big sculpture at Congress Plaza called The Bowman and the Spearman. After that, we went to the north side of the city, crossing the Magnificent Mile, made a short stop at Chicago’s Zoo and also passed near  Wrigley Field (home of Chicago Cubs), one of the most famous baseball fields in the USA.

After the north side we went to the south using the Lake Shore Drive to reach a south neighborhood when the Obama family has their house in Chicago ( as an explanation, if you don’t know, the current US President lived in Chicago before the move to the White House in Washington DC). We passed near the Museum of Science and Industry, and we stopped at Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum to take some pictures.

The final stop of the tour was at John Hancock Tower in order to visit the Observatory. The view  was beautiful because we could  see all the city of Chicago and Michigan Lake, and I can tell you that is an amazing view! We left the tower, and we walked a little more of the Magnificent Mile because it was Black Friday, and it was time for shopping !!!!!

Walking at Downtown!!

My second day in Chicago was on Thanksgiving Day. Almost everything was closed, except McDonald’s; therefore we decided to walk through Chicago's downtown.

My wife and I started our tour visiting Millennium Park. Our first picture was in front of a wall made of video screen bricks, which was showing us two faces. The name of this place is Crown Fountain. Near this place we saw an ice skating rink and from this skating rink it was possible to see the most famous sculpture at this park, the Bean!

As did a million other people who visited and will visit Millennium Park, we took some pictures in the Bean. It's really a unique sculpture to appreciate.

After that, we passed through a garden, which was looking like a dead garden because in November it is fall in the USA and all of the landscape does not look good.

We were a little disappointed with the fountain because it was without water; again the reason was the fall season. I realized that we need to come back there during the spring or the summer to fully enjoy the beautiful park.

We walked on the edge of the lake, from the fountain to the Navy Pier. It was a long and cold walk because the temperature was not too cold, but we were facing a lot of wind.

Everything at the pier was closed because of the holiday. Thus, we decided to walk again up to Michigan Avenue or the Majestic Mile. Our target was a restaurant that we could have lunch at, because it was almost 03:00 PM and we hadn’t had lunch yet.

We found an open restaurant near Michigan Avenue that was TGI Friday's, but at that time and considering the options that we had, they had the best food and the best restaurant in town!

After the lunch, we came back to our walking journey, and we passed through Michigan Avenue and came back to the hotel.

During the night, we had our Thanksgiving dinner at the famous American restaurant, MacDonald’s! (it was the only one open that night). It was less than one block from the hotel.

I'll tell more about day 3 and 4 in the next posts.....

First Journey inside the USA – Chicago (part II)

Continuing our journey to Chicago, we decided to visit a Brazilian supermarket near Chicago’s downtown before the hotel. I drove 2 hours and 30 minutes to Chicago, but reaching the city, I spent an extra hour just to cross part of the city because the terrible traffic in Chicago.

I found Pepe’s Supermarket  (it’s a small grocery store) ,searching on the Internet looking for Brazilian food. We reached Pepe’s earlier in the afternoon, but it’s a normal grocery store with only an aisle of some Brazilian foods such as cheese bread, guaraná soda, Passatempo, cassava flour, Brazilian coffee, etc.  I bought some things just as a reminder from my country.

Walking a few blocks from Pepe’s there is another grocery store that is selling the same kind of food but with an extra.  The name of this place is “Brasil Legal,” and this store is owned by a Brazilian lady called Silvana. The store has a Brazilian specialty called “coxinha”, that Americans call a chicken ball. My wife and I ordered “coxinha” and guaraná soda for our lunch. I can tell you that it was delicious !!!

Thank you Silvana for good food and hospitality……..

After this good time, I spent another one hour in Chicago’s traffic to come back to downtown and another 30 minutes to find the hotel with the GPS (it’s not working properly through the tallest buildings at Chicago’s downtown) but in the end, I found the hotel…….

Let’s start the four-day weekend !!!!!!

First Journey inside the USA – Chicago (part I)

As I mentioned in a earlier post, I planned to visit Chicago during this Thanksgiving holiday, so it’s time to tell you what happened there. But instead of starting with my journey, I would like to tell some interesting things that happened before we reached the hotel.

Starting on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, my wife and I were trying to use the car wash here. In Brazil you leave your car at the car wash and pick it up after 2 hours totally clean (inside and outside).  Here in the USA, we only knew that it’s an automatic line and it only cleans the outside. We started with the Jeep, that has the spare tire outside the truck and there was a cover on it. There was not problem to do this, in fact it was easy, and the only major work was to put the wheel in the track to start the process. During the wash, it was strange to be inside the car looking at all those brushes coming toward you, but so far it was good.

We left the car wash and it was looking good, but after we reached our house we realized that there was no cover on the spare tire anymore. It was okay, because it was an old one. After this loss, we went with the other car and everything was good, but we did not recover the spire tire cover!

At that time, our car it was ready to the trip.

Future Plan........

This week there are no huge adventures to report, so I decided to tell about my plan for the Thanksgiving weekend.

My wife and I have planned to visit some cities and tourist places here in the United States during these three years here in the U.S.A. We would like to visit New York City, Florida (Disney World), Niagara Falls, Las Vegas. Those are the primary destinations, but as our start, we decided to visit Chicago during the Thanksgiving weekend.

We are checking the hotels, parking lots in downtown, and interesting things that we can do during the Thanksgiving weekend. Our initial plan is to spend 3 days there. The first day we will spend visiting the Millennium Park and Michigan Avenue, the second one we will visit the downtown with a bus tour, and the third one we will go to the Field Museum. The last day of this long weekend, we will spend at home relaxing because on Monday I'll need to go to work, and my wife will have classes in the morning.

I can tell you more details about this trip after Thanksgiving.

Pumpkins…..

Many times in different movies, TV shows, and cartoons (during the fall season) I have seen the pumpkins as a big and strong symbol here in America. During the week I heard some comments about a pumpkin patch in a little town near here. My wife also found their website (www.the200acres.com), so we decided to visit this event.

After doing some homework on Saturday morning, we ( my wife and I) left Decatur for a 1 hour drive to Arthur, and the amazing things started when I arrived in the city. I saw some black horse-driven buggies, women wearing long dresses and also riding bicycles. I realized that maybe I was near an Amish community (a bonus for my trip!).

Arriving in the pumpkin patch I really noticed the size of American’s passion for the fall season. The place was crowded, starting from the parking lot, but fortunately I found a place almost at the entrance of the patch. Inside there were pumpkins everywhere, but also there were many mums (flowers).

For me the best part of the trip was outside the patch. First there was the bakery with a lot of cakes, cookies, and breads. Also  I visited a traditional restaurant in town with a large buffet (including home cooked food and a delicious chocolate dessert). The only problem in this amazing restaurant was waiting almost one hour inside the gift shop area…

That was a good and different Saturday …… now let’s eat the pumpkin bread!

Let’s drive….

Another topic that my tutor from my cultural training told me about is to celebrate all little achievements.  Therefore this last weekend I had a good reason to celebrate. We finished our ID mission, I had already gotten my driver’s license 20 days ago and now was the time for my wife to get  hers.  That was a huge achievement for us, because she doesn’t speak English yet, but she was able to read and understand all the questions on the test and also she understood the examiner’s instruction during the practical test. I’m very proud of her!

So, at this time, I would like to talk about a few differences between Brazil and U.S. driver’s tests.

In Brazil, we spend a lot of money and time to get our driver’s licenses.  I had several class hours about first aid, mechanics, laws, etc. After this, I had my theory test in a government’s drivers department. Another several class hours were spent having practice classes including parallel parking (something that I’m never using here in Illinois.), and in the end, the practical test in the streets using a school vehicle. All of this process takes around 3 months, and costs about $300.00 dollars (if you do not pass in one of those phases, you need to pay an extra tax for that) and you can only start this process after the 18^th birthday.

Here in the U.S., I completed all phases in about 2 hours and $30.00 (including 3 attempts). I reached the driver’s license facility at 9:30 am just to check my documents.  The person at the front door gave me a password. I waited about ten minutes, answered some questions and signed the form. After that, I started my theory test. I got 90% on this test, so I passed.

I waited ten more minutes to start my practical test with my own car. In this test, I started by saying,  “Maybe I’ll ask you to repeat some sentences because I’m from Brazil”.  After talking a little about soccer and checking the lights and horn, I drove around the driver’s license facility for twenty more minutes. The last word that I heard from the examiner was “Approved.” Inside the facility I waited a few more minutes, I got my picture taken looking at the Sponge Bob picture, and I was done!  

In my opinion, this experience showed me how much bureaucracy I had there and how expensive these kind of services are. I’m sure that I’ll miss those good services after my return…..

Cultural Training

Everybody coming from an overseas country, in my company, has a one day training to give them an idea of the basic differences between their home culture and the new one. In fact, I was supposed to have this training before my final move, but it was scheduled after two months living here, a little behind schedule! But basically, I would like to highlight three topics that were interesting in my point of view.

First is why American people don’t care as much about their own cars as Brazilians. Next is why American don’t change their clothes to go out. The last, but not least important, is why Americans don’t brush their teeth after lunch in the office. But before I start the topics, I need to talk about the tutor, who came from Washington DC, lived a few years in Brazil during the 70s, and in the same region that I came from; this is interesting considering the size of the country.

When I came here for the first time in 2010, I realized that American people don’t care about their cars like Brazilians, and I always thought that the price of the cars was the reason. Because the car here in the U.S. with a price around $17,000.00 dollars, in Brazil I would pay around R$65,000.00 reais (or $30,000.00 dollars), but the tutor told us that the difference was based on personalities. In the U.S.,  people don’t care about what other people will think about them. On the other hand, you have Brazilian people who would like to show off their own goods. I don’t believe in this theory. For me the price is the better answer.

About the clothes, I don’t have any theory from my side, but I can tell you that for me it’s strange to see someone wearing socks with slippers and shorts in the supermarket.  In Brazil it’s different.  People have clothes to use at home, and others to use when they go out at night. The tutor told me the same theory about cars.

Now, when I started to talk about the differences in the office, one thing that is normal in Brazil is to brush the teeth after lunch, and here I am the only one in my area who is doing this. The tutor told me that here in U.S., this action (brushing teeth) is considered an intimate one, and it’s not performed in public. For me and in my country, this is a heath care action, and there is not problem to do that in public.

So, in an overall view, the training was very good. My wife liked it because the tutor described my wife’s  feelings about being  in a foreign country so well…….

The Weather

My tutor this week asked me to write about the weather. I know that this kind of subject is really good for small conversation, but I will push this conversation to my future dealing with cold……the Illinois Winter. In my last class I asked my Tutor about the weather at that moment and she told me that it was cool, but seriously, it was cold, too cold for me!

Coming from a region in Brazil where the normal average temperature range in the winter is from 6 to 20 °C (43 to 68 °F), and now here, in the beginning of autumn sometimes reaching  2 °C (34 °F), I think it will be a hard adjustment.  I was searching on the Internet about it and the lowest temperature (not official) in Illinois was  -38 °C (-37 °F) in Jan 2009 at Rochelle (About 03 hours driving from my current city). I can’t imagine what will be my reaction in this scenario because I have never seen snow in my life, but I’m anxious to jump on snowy ground and build a snowman in the back yard!

After I received the invitation to move to Illinois, people from my work, who had the same experience in the past, told me to be prepared for winter, but in fact, I can tell you that I had already started our winter war. I bought some heavy jackets, special shoes, gloves, caps (with ears protection). But I still need to buy thermal underwear, an ice scraper to keep in my car, a big shovel to clean our driveway, and some marshmallows to roast in our fireplace. The last time that I went to the  mall to shop, in fact I bought one more jacket, and the attendant asked me if I was preparing myself for the winter, and I can tell you that the answer was YES.

I think that in general , this experience will be a good (and cold) one for me and my wife.

Talking about Halloween

I need to remind you that I came from a country that doesn’t have Halloween as a holiday on its calendar, so the first question for my teacher was: “Why is there Halloween in the U.S.?” I can tell you that considering all the Halloween stuff on the market (in fact there is Halloween merchandise everywhere) I supposed that it’s very important, and it’s true. The current forecast for 2012 is almost $8 billion in spending (only in USA).

But the main reason to post this text is to talk about Halloween in the past, the origins of this celebration. What I notice is a mix of ancient celebrations that came to be in the modern observance that everyone knows. Some sources can connect Halloween with the Celtics, others with Catholic Roman celebrations, and other sources say that Halloween emerged from Indians beliefs, but all of them are related to the dead and ghosts.

Celtics’ beliefs are related to something evil that returns to Earth and could make damages to their bodies or even to their crops. So they usually had bonfires and wore costumes. Also they believed that their priests had the ability and power to fight with those ghosts.

Romans (Catholics) celebrated the passing of the dead during the day known as  “Feralia” and a second day to celebrate the Goddess of Fruit and Trees (Pomona). The symbology used in this celebration was apples, and maybe from this celebration the tradition of bobbing for apples was born.

When Europeans came to America, they brought many types of Halloween beliefs and joined them with Indians beliefs. A new Halloween was created that included parties, celebrations of the harvest, stories of dead, fortune telling, singing, and dancing. Kids began joining in this celebration only in the beginning of 20^th century with their trick-or- treating and dressing up in costumes.

I can’t talk about Halloween without saying anything about  the first picture that pops up in my mind when I hear the word Halloween:  the Jack-o’- lantern, the strange lantern that is typically carved pumpkins, originally from Europe and carved from other vegetables (In Scotland and Ireland, they used to carve turnips and in England, they carved beets).

Now, it’s time to start buying all kind of candies, decorate the house, and be prepared for the kids on October 31^st!

Trick or treat?  !!!!!!!!