THE SECOND CITY – American comedy’s Harvard in Chicago

Second City is not particularly funny from the outside, but when you pass under those arches…

To really find out about a nation’s zeitgeist, watch its comedy. I don’t mean the carefully scripted, censored-so-as-not-to-lose-the-ratings comedy of films and television. The raw comedy of the clubs is where all is revealed.

For fifty years, in Chicago’s The Second City, funny young people have been climbing onto the stage and winging it, thinking on their feet, improvising in front of a tough crowd. It’s a terrifying learning ground, but some have survived it and graduated to fame and fortune.

WE GO FIVE STAR – in some of Chicago’s best hotels

The lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel, Chicago. Slightly intimidating, until you get to know it.

Ooh, it would be nice to get used to this!

It was a pleasant surprise, though somewhat daunting, to be invited to write about the Chicago hotels where people stay when they’re either very rich or plain folks who have decided to splurge.

Regular visitors to this blog will know that Mevrouw T and I are not usually five star people. We normally ride our bikes to basic B&Bs or sleep in mountain refuges. The places and the journeys between them are what interest us; a hotel is just somewhere to lay our heads, though we hope it’s hygienic, comfortable and not shared with a football team on a post-season booze-up.

We sometimes feel intimidated by lobbies like the one pictured above, so it was nice to find that we were welcome, even when we hadn’t visited a laundromat for a few days and our shoes were showing signs of wear.

CYCLING USA – Chicago gets it right

Relaxed and comfortable – with hands free for texting perhaps?

Americans are in love with their cars, right? But even in New York bike use is growing fast and Chicago is putting in some work to define itself as a bike-friendly city. They have innovations other places could well imitate.

DRIEHAUS MUSEUM – inside Chicago’s most expensive mansion

Inside the former Nickerson Mansion.

I know, I know, there’s an unfinished, unfurnished penthouse in Trump Tower for sale for $30 million or something ridiculous. But the Nickerson Mansion cost millions to build in 1879-83. It was for years the second most expensive house in Chicago but the most expensive one has been demolished. So this house, now the Driehaus Museum, is the reigning champion.

The doors are now open to the public, so naturally Mevrouw T dragged me inside. I’m glad she did.

MARILYN MONROE – still pulling a crowd

If she’s not stopping traffic, she’s at least slowing it down.

Chicagoans and visitors to the windy city have only a few more days to look up Marilyn’s skirt. She’s standing 26 feet (5 metres) tall on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue until Monday, then moving to Palm Springs, California.

The work of New Jersey-based artist Seward Johnson has been controversial for the ten months it has been in town.

CLOUD GATE – Anish Kapoor’s ‘bean’ identifies Chicago

Artist Anish Kapoor reportedly hates the nickname, but it’s likely to stick.

It’s not easy to create an icon for a city, but Indian born British artist Anish Kapoor has done it for Chicago.

His giant chrome sculpture Cloud Gate, constructed between 2004-2006, is fast becoming the most instantly identifiable symbol of the town. No longer just the city of Al Capone, Frank Lloyd Wright and Barak Obama, Chicago is becoming the city of the Big Shiny Bean.

I’d seen a lot of photos of this work, but nothing does it justice. Like Ayers Rock/Uluru, you have to see it up close to understand how extraordinary it is.