'Odds 'n' Sods' in Chicago

Outside our hotel was this brilliant moped which reminded me of the Who movie, Quadrophenia, and also of my past biker days when I used to wear a pin on my leather bike jacket which said, 'Violate A Vespa'.

This weird building is the Thompson Center but is also known as the Birthday Cake Building. It houses offices and retail space and is supposed to be a futuristic reinterpretation of the state capitol form. Our tour guide described the ugly white 'art' piece at the front as "Snoopy in a blender" which was hilarious.

We had a lot of laughs in front of these wacky mirrors on the Navy Pier.

I couldn't take my eyes off of this John Lee Hooker wannabee. He really looked the part and I had to admire his confidence.

The best popcorn ever is Garrett popcorn. In our tour guide brochure, we were given a wealth of freebie coupons and our gratis gift from Garretts was a bag of caramel popcorn and cheese popcorn. It was a good sized bag and absolutely delicious, an opinion shared by the locals as the queue went out the door. Incidentally, we had quite a few freebies which we claimed throughout our visit but the meanest one of all came from Oprah. All the coupons gave free gifts except for her. She gave a free plastic ballpoint pen, but only when you made a purchase from her shop, which also we weren't allowed to take photos of inside. I didn't claim my pen but I did take an indignant photo.

This is a view from the Sears Tower which had very dirty windows.

This beautiful art nuveau subway entrance is a replica of a Paris subway entrance designed by Hector Guimard and given to Chicago by the city of Paris in 2001.
In Chicago's China Town, is the Nine Dragon Wall. Our tour guide informed us that there are four of these walls and the other three are in China.

As we were driven around the city by bus, I noticed this scene of newly weds posing in the middle of the street. I grabbed a quick shot as the bus passed and was really pleased with the result.

On our last morning, we spent a couple of hours shopping and I fell in love with these beautiful pink shoes with silver heels. Sadly I couldn't afford to spend $60 on a pair of shoes that would rarely fit into my lifestyle so I took a photo then slowly placed them back on the shelf with a wistful last look over my shoulder as I left...

I spotted this sign declaring that Led Zep would be playing on June 12. I'd love to know how they got the booking since the band still haven't decided to perform a comeback tour.

I loved the derelict feel of this subway station and felt this image would have been at home amongst my 'abandoned building' photos if there hadn't been people standing on the platform.
I feel an urban exploration coming on!