DFW -> ORD

Your personality is fueled by the fascination you feel for life. --fortune cookie from Thai Tina's, downtown Fort Worth, November 6, 2009

I love cities! We travel to cities and go to museums and concerts and parks, but I am happy just being out in the crowds, amid the noise and bustle and energy of thousands of people in motion. There is so much of interest everywhere I look, countless little dramas unfolding all around me: a man hurrying back to work, a young couple very much in love, a family rushing to get on the bus, a group of teenagers laughing as they emerge from an underground subway station, a toddler chasing a pigeon in a park, a delivery man greeting a shop owner as he unloads boxes from a truck.

Each of the cities we visit — Paris, London, Buenos Aires, Rome, New York, Chicago — has a distinctive atmosphere, a unique sensibility, but they share this attraction of concentrated energy. I'd never confuse Paris with, say, London, or Chicago with Buenos Aires, but the feeling of excitement, for me, is very much the same in all of them. I recently read David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries, which ends with this paragraph:

Observing and engaging in a city’s life — even for a reticent and often shy person like me — is one of life’s great joys. Being a social creature — it is part of what it means to be human.

So, it's not surprising that when Terri recently found cheap airfares and asked me, "Do you want to go to Chicago?" I answered, "Why not?" She also found a good deal on a room at the new Hampton Inn inside the Loop, so we're all set. We're leaving Fort Worth in a few hours and will return on Tuesday.

Here's some snaps from our trips to Chicago in August 2005 and September 2006.

I'll blog a time or two and post some snaps on Flickr while we're there. Until then, feel free to contemplate this picture of Paradise.