Rough sketch

10am.

I had a dream that I typed up a blog entry about my field trip experience and posted it when I had internet access again. That sounds like a pretty good idea, so here I go.


For those of you who don't know, this is my first out of 3 or 4 field trips for my Art 199 (aka sculpture) class. Today we are going to Millennium Park. We left the Art and Design Building a little after 8, even though I got there at like 7:38 because I was so worried about being late. Unfortunately, "a little after 8"didn't give us enough time to grab parking at our little train station outside the city, meaning we are driving in to the city right now. "We have an hour and 15 minutes" they say, until our tour. The only problem with driving into the city is that one of our drivers (my professor's friend) doesn't want to drive through rush hour, while the other one (a senior in the class) needs to get back early and doesn't care about rush hour. So I guess we'll split up. Personally, I don't need to go back early, but we'll see how it goes.

Hopefully my camera is working so I can take some photos of sculptures to post later.


8:30pm.

I had quite a fun, full day! Here's what I did (later I will post pictures and perhaps go into more detail about certain things, not that you will care).

We were able to park in the parking garage under Millennium Park. Kind of weird that parking in Chicago is, in some ways, easier to come by than parking in CU (not that I would want to do it every day). They make very good use of underground space.

Before our 11:30 Millennium Park tour, my classmate Liz (who I was in the car with on the way up) and I walked over to Walgreens so I could get batteries for my camera -.-; and a soda. No adventure is complete, of course, without going to Walgreens.

Then we met up with everyone and went on our tour. It was great! I have actually never walked around Millennium Park before. I really liked the space they had for concerts. Our tour guide gave us a lot of background about the history of the park and the structural challenges the engineers faced, so I learned a lot (the point of the whole trip, of course :P). Although obviously there weren't flowers and whatnot, it was a very nice day to be outside.

After the tour, our group went to Bennigan's and ordered way too much food. It was awesome. I had a delicious Monte Cristo and traded Ben my side dish for his dessert. Amanda ordered 3 (!) drinks. Then everyone except Maxine and I had to leave (they were the group that needed to go home early), so Maxine and I gathered up all the leftovers and looked at a few shops. I was reminded, of course, of the Music Club trips to see the Chicago Symphony orchestra... good times!!

Then the two adults, Maxine and I went to the Art Institute to see the Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper exhibits. Being especially interested in watercolors lately, I thoroughly enjoyed the Homer exhibit -- plus, there were tons of paintings and information about the techniques he used posted next to them. Hopper, you might remember, is the painter of the famous Nighthawks, with the people sitting in the diner at night. His pieces usually feature bold, flat colors and a focus on how light falls on objects. I really liked his urban scenes.

Although I was tempted to buy a book on watercolor techniques, I ended up just buying a little Homer postcard set so I can send postcards to people when I'm in Colorado (don't worry, I'll send Colorado-themed ones, too).

Then we went to au bon pain and it was buy one get one for specialty drinks so I got myself a free latte.

And now we are driving home and should get there around 10.

I am studying linear algebra for my test tomorrow. Actually, I just realized that I've been studying chapter 2 very diligently instead of 3 and 4 like I'm supposed to. (Yes, there are 9 chapters in this book and we are more than halfway done (I think?) with the semester. It amuses me.)

This book often says things like "the interested reader might want to prove this before moving on" or "the careful reader might have noticed such-and-such"; they never address me. I think I would fall under the category of "the lazy reader."

Anyhow. Onward to studying. Maybe I'll import my photos tomorrow.... after I do the MP!


10pm.
We got back into town, and now I am posting this and going back to math. xP