Chicago Trip: Evanston - Adler - Field Museum

Hai! This is the story of my first day trip to Chicago. Enjoy!

Please introduce Mufti, my husband. Since there were just the two of us in the trip, you'll rarely find our picture together. :D

Anyway, here we were at Davis CTA, the closest train station from our place in Evanston. We were waiting for the Purple Line train that will bring us to Howard CTA, before we moved to Red Line which will bring us to downtown Chicago. The train station was clean.. there were many fat pigeon around.. we love to see them that fat.. :D But most of them, we loved the train even more because we only need to wait for short time and it - most of the time - never been crowded.


Our first destination was Adler planetarium. Adler is located in the Museum campus at 1300 S. Lake Shore Drive. Going down in Rossevelt station, we then took CTA bus no 12. My first impression, "Wooow... how beautiful Chicago is from Addler". Check the picture out!
Adler is located close to Lake Michigan. It has 2 big theaters inside. It's Monday... and Monday is free admission day here (from September to December)! So.. instead paid for $16 per person for admission and show, we only paid for $7 per person for watching a 30-minutes show in the theatre. We watched the Timespace in StarRider Theatre. The show started with the Big Bang process and ended with the estimated future description on human's life. If we don't have more space on earth, maybe we should expand to other planet. Hmmm...
After that we went through the museum. It's good. Learn more about astronomy. Mufti looked very interested. The museum was very interactive, they had short movies using computer, many miniatures, trivia quizes, and even puzzle (that will drop and cause noisy noise so people will see you when you finish it) :D


After that we ate in the coffee shop. I picked Submarine Turkey Panini and it was delicious! Hmmm.. never imagine a delicious sandwich like this... It was toasted sandwich with turkey, cheese, tomatoes and other ingredients. The sandwich cost us $7 each.

After have finished our lunch, we went out to go to the next museum. We had the opportunity to take several pictures in front of Addler and here is one of them. Huge museum.
If you interested to find more info on this museum, check this website out: www.adlerplanetarium.org

Next destination was Field Museum. It was within walking distance to Adler, however we decided to take a bus since it was freezing out there.

In Field Museum, we saw ancient history, from the history of Pompeii to the full-size replica of Sue, the T-rex.
Our first destination was the exhibition of buried treasures and human drama of the people in Pompeii. Around 2000 years ago, a vibrant society dissapeared beneath the ashes of Vesuvius. One night, while people were unaware of Vesuvius eruption, the ashes and lava came and destroyed the whole civilization. Some people tried to escaped and brought their belongings just like jewelry, gold coins, etc. They seemed to be pretty rich there. In fact one of Julius Caesar relatives lived there as well. However, they could escape nowhere. From the replica of the body structure we can see their last positions, some tried to protect their family, some tried to scream, some tried to hide...
Things that I've learned here: we will never know when we are going to die, so be good!

The major difference between this museum and the other museums that I've visited was the musical background. In this Pompeii gallery there was music background that could light up the atmosphere as if we were at that Vesuvius moment. It was awesome!

After Pompeii, we went through the other part of the museum, including the part of dinosaurs exploration. It was HUGE!

That was the end of my first day trip to Chicago. Actually there was another good museum: The Oceanarium. However since it was getting late, we skipped it and decided to go home. :D

I've learned several things today.
First, there are many ways to have a more attractive museum. From an interactive format in Adler to the usage of musical background to lighten up the ambience. They also have good marketing strategy to promote the museum: free admission day, special museum package using citypass, even promoting special events through their website. Check this out: www.fieldmuseum.org

Second, We are so small. There were many great and big civilization back then, but everything could be destroyed. Looking at us in the galaxy system, we are almost nothing. Hmm...

Well, my friend... Let's do many good things right now and then.. because we will never now when God Almighty will take us back. Cheers...