Tuesday, July 04, 2006
This land is your land, this land is my land...
We had a pretty full and interesting 4th of July this year. We began the day with no concrete plans except to drive our friend Karen to the airport in the morning. After we dropped her off we decided to continue on into downtown Chicago since we were so close already anyway. We headed up to the Lincoln Park Zoo along the north lake shore. So Emma got to see the big city again for the first time in quite a while.
It was interesting being at the Zoo. Besides seeing a lot of cool animals (lions, and tigers and bears... O My!), it was neat being surrounded by such a diversity of people of different ethnicities, languages, religions, etc. We saw Muslims and Hindus enjoying the Zoo along with us, and the majority of the people there seemed to be speaking Spanish, though the next largest group seemed to be young couples like ourselves with very young children. Like us they spent most of their time pointing out the animals to their quickly distracted toddlers.
Emma got to see real lions - her favorite animal. She also got to play with some gorilla statues after seeing some real silverback gorillas in their cages.
Today was a day of strange contrasts though, because after we got back to the zoo and took some naps, we went out in the evening to join some new Yorkville friends out in the even smaller town of Sheridan, about 20 minutes west of Yorkville, for a village festival and 4th of July fireworks. The cultural contrast of this town with downtown Chicago couln't be more stark. Sheridan was the epitome of white, blue-collar, rural America. We had a good time with our friends, and enjoyed some of typical fair junk-food (calzones and funnel-cakes), though the fireworks ended up being somewhat of a bust (they didn't start till after 9:30, didn't last very long and at one point a whole bunch of them exploded right on the ground nearly injuring the people lighting them off! - that part at least was exciting!)
Anyhow, it was quite the full day for us, traveling into the very heart of urban Chicago, driving out past the farthest suburb into the rural Midwest, and then coming home to our home in the ex-urbs. Not a bad way to spend Independence Day, tasting slices of life from the different geographical sub-cultures that make up America.
It was interesting being at the Zoo. Besides seeing a lot of cool animals (lions, and tigers and bears... O My!), it was neat being surrounded by such a diversity of people of different ethnicities, languages, religions, etc. We saw Muslims and Hindus enjoying the Zoo along with us, and the majority of the people there seemed to be speaking Spanish, though the next largest group seemed to be young couples like ourselves with very young children. Like us they spent most of their time pointing out the animals to their quickly distracted toddlers.
Emma got to see real lions - her favorite animal. She also got to play with some gorilla statues after seeing some real silverback gorillas in their cages.
Today was a day of strange contrasts though, because after we got back to the zoo and took some naps, we went out in the evening to join some new Yorkville friends out in the even smaller town of Sheridan, about 20 minutes west of Yorkville, for a village festival and 4th of July fireworks. The cultural contrast of this town with downtown Chicago couln't be more stark. Sheridan was the epitome of white, blue-collar, rural America. We had a good time with our friends, and enjoyed some of typical fair junk-food (calzones and funnel-cakes), though the fireworks ended up being somewhat of a bust (they didn't start till after 9:30, didn't last very long and at one point a whole bunch of them exploded right on the ground nearly injuring the people lighting them off! - that part at least was exciting!)
Anyhow, it was quite the full day for us, traveling into the very heart of urban Chicago, driving out past the farthest suburb into the rural Midwest, and then coming home to our home in the ex-urbs. Not a bad way to spend Independence Day, tasting slices of life from the different geographical sub-cultures that make up America.
It sounds like you all had a good day!
If you remember our friend, Paul (he came to up/rooted for a little in the very beginning), he lives in Sheridan! Small world...