Sophisticated travelers

Chicago is a great place to visit, but I sure wouldn't want to live there. For one thing, I like having a car and being able to drive - without being stuck in gridlock at any given hour of the day or having to spend ridiculous amounts of money each time I need to park ($42/night at our hotel, $21 for the first hour at a museum).

Thankfully, I was tipped off before the trip to park in the long-term lot at Midway airport ($9/night), from which we (i.e. Jeff) could take the "L" back downtown to our hotel.

The kids adapted quite well to public transportation. In fact, it became part of the vacation adventure. Here's their first taxi ride:

I lost count of how many times AJ commented, "look at that skyscraper." The kids quickly developed a rating system for each taxi, judging the air conditioning and whether or not it had a TV (though it only played a news channel.)

Most of the drivers ignored us, tuning us out with headphones or talking on their phone via an ear piece. But one driver found my children to be highly entertaining. As I recall, the exchange between Sydney and AJ went something like this.

Sydney: "AJ, when I get married, will you be my husband?"

AJ: "Sydney, I would go to jail for that!"

Perhaps a non English speaking driver wouldn't have been so bad.

For our trip to Wrigley Field, we took the "L".

Nowhere have I been able to figure out how this combination train/subway got its nickname. My first guess was it was an abbreviation for ELevated train. Or maybe it's because the main section under downtown is known as the Loop. Apparently no one else wonders about these things, because even a web page dedicated to the history of the L's development doesn't explain.

My curiosities aside, the kids had mixed reactions to the L. Sydney wasn't too wild about it. Too many stairs involved to climb underground and later work our way back to the surface. The ticket/turn style process was interesting to them, and once seats opened up for them to sit, they enjoyed the ride much more. But overall, AJ liked the elevated portions of the trip much more than the subway segments.

One last fun traveling story that has nothing to do with public transportation. AJ obviously listens to us as we interact with other hotel guests. At a hotel in Madison on our way home, when the elevator door opened for us, AJ looked at the three men already inside and asked, "Excuse me, is this going up?"

The men had been speaking in another language, I'm guessing it was Russian, but they stopped and nodded. At the next floor, two of the men got off, but the third remained. He smiled at AJ and asked in a thick accent, "What is your name?"

AJ seemed almost stumped as to how to answer, and then it became clear it was because he was already thinking ahead to a question he wanted to ask the man in return. I braced myself for an embarrassing scene as AJ at last responded, "I'm Alex. Did you know, um, that you, um, look like Frank Sinatra?"

The man (who really didn't look like Frank Sinatra other than perhaps his hairstyle) smiled and said something about wishing he could sing like him. Thankfully it was only a few more seconds before we reached our floor. Thankfully, we will likely never see the man, or the Chicago taxi driver, ever again.