Last week, my family and I vacationed in the Windy City, aka Chicago. In case you're interested in where names come from, the "Windy City" does not refer to how much wind comes off Lake Michigan, but rather that early city promoters were called "wind bags" for their efforts to make Chicago seems greater than it was.
The name Chicago is a French derivation of an earlier Native American word that loosely means, "heap of big, stinking onions." Apparently there were a lot of wild onions and garlic in the area. This is also what I called my husband after he ate a particularly potent onion sandwich.
We were in Chicago for a specific reason - to learn more about Al Capone, the 20's and prohibition. My 12-year-old daughter continues her fascination with old-timey gangsters thus the Chicago vacation.
Our hotel, The Blackstone, is a historic hotel right on Michigan Avenue. Al Capone used to get his haircut in the barbershop there. The baseball bat scene from the UNTOUCHABLES movie was filmed at the hotel. The Blackstone offered a package called "Good to be a Gangster" which included a copy of the movie, a signed copy of a new book about Al Capone, and tickets to the Untouchables Tour of Chicago.
The Untouchables Tour was a highlight of our trip. The picture above shows one of our guides as we drove around town in a black school bus. We learned all about prohibition and Chicago crooks as we drove past historic places such as Al Capone's former headquarters and the site of the Valentine's Day Massacre. Pretty interesting, gruesome stuff, but these guys made it very compelling and fun.
The book we received, which my daughter is now reading, is worth a look for anyone interested in Al Capone, his rise to power, and eventual capture. It's called GET CAPONE by Jonathan Eig, published by Simon & Shuster.
Besides being hotter than hades the week we were there, Chicago was a lot of fun. We ate deep dish pizza, visited museums, rode the EL, and, of course, learned about Al Capone. And fortunately, it did not smell like rotting onions.
2 comments:
That sounds like such fun! I love that you planned a trip around your daughter's interest. I'm guessing Paul was pretty into it, too!
It was a lot of fun! Juliana's been wanting to go to Chicago for a long time. So this seemed to be the perfect plan.
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