We drove over Saturday morning, and made our way to Jon and Laura's place. (We foolishly followed GPS Thelma's route, which meandered through roads we'd never seen, but at least landed us at the correct apartment.) We enjoyed lunch with Laura & the boys (delightful boys!!!), and Dave & Joyce.
After lunch, we went Visit to Powell's book store. Jim left with a stack of history books; I left with two great knitting reference books (two of the Harmony Guides - Knit and Purl, and Colorwork Stitches - great price, great condition).
We enjoyed walking around the neighborhood there, looking at buildings and such. It was, I confess, a tad brisk (!), but it was sunny and so we ignored the cold.
We grabbed sandwiches for dinner, and headed to Rockefeller Chapel, the venue for the Apollo Chorus performance.
We walked around that area as well. Here's the Rockefeller Chapel, in the late afternoon:
We liked this tower. It was located north of Rockefeller Chapel; I think it is the Chicago Theological Seminary:
We discovered that the Oriental Institute Museum, located next to the chapel, was hosting the exhibit Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt. We had enough time to slip in and take a quick look.
We both were quite taken (of course) with this limestone carving of an owl, which depicts the head of the owl hieroglyph:
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| photo from http://mag.uchicago.edu/ arts-humanities/bird-bird |
From there, we headed back to Rockefeller Chapel, for the concert. The interior reminded me of cathedrals we saw in England. We decided we need to go back when we can take a proper tour of the chapel.
We sat very near the front, and I was impressed by the organ pipes (we also need to come back for an organ concert), and by the inlaid marble on the pulpit, which you can just barely see in this photo. That is, you can just barely see the inlaid marble (at the lower right); the pipes are rather obvious:
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| photo from http://pipe-organs. tumblr.com/post/8798439510 |
We enjoyed the concert - Mozart's Divertimiento in D major, Charpentier's Te Deum, and Haydn's Mass in B flat "Theresienmesse." Again, I was reminded of a choir we heard in England, in one of the cathedrals, and how beautiful the voices were in that space.
Afterwards, we headed to the Beer Hotel (we followed our own common sense and experience, rather than relying on Crazy Thelma). Joyce had picked up some decadent brownies, so we talked and ate, then headed for bed, and in the morning, for home.
Bonnie was happy to see us the next day, although she still wasn't particularly happy to have her picture taken:
And wasn't this a beautiful day to come home to?
This was a fun and eventful trip. We like Chicago and visiting Robin's brother and his family. It was also good to come home to our dear Bon-bon.
ReplyDeleteThe Museum was a serendipitous find. UChi was one of the great "orientalist" institutions of the early 20th Century. The collection we viewed, Birds in Ancient Egypt, was impressive and fascinating. I wish the Museum Shop had offered a repro of the owl head, but I suppose that's tacky. Lots of nice jewelry on offer there, but an unwilling erstwhile recipient spoiled the fun of that. The concert was fantastic, especially having the Haydn not performed in antiquarian precious style.