January

Ribbon-ed reminders, Chicago, Jan ’10

What have I spent 2010 doing so far? Uhhh.. Shopping, mostly. Groceries and skin care and makeup and compression stockings in Europe, and clothing and accessories in the US.  Milan (tomatoes! pasta! olives!) and Frankfurt (sausages! gherkins!) and Chicago (Flight oo1 store! Urban Outfitters with apparel reduced from $128 to $20 etc!), yes, that last one was especially satisfying. Best purchase from the $500 I spent? This.

In a few hours I’m due to collect Mum from the airport, assuming she successfully connected in Melbourne. She’ll be here around 3 weeks. I’ve booked us tickets to Istanbul at the end of the month and my (still ironing out the details) plan is for us to spend about three or four nights there and then either ferry hop west to one or more of the Greek islands and/or Athens or take a string of train or bus rides east to reach Aleppo and Damascus. It’s winter, so I’m not sure how appropriate the islands will be now, but on the bright side: much less of us (tourists). This is all dependent on several external variables, namely a) whether my pay this month will support traipsing around Turkey, b) whether Mum is in good enough health to partake in said traipsing, and c) if my day off requests are granted.

Another plan (with details to iron out) is Vegas in June with Ann, and whoever else we round up..maybe Basel? By the middle of the year I’ll totally be in need for a seedy obnoxious city, so it’s either Vegas, or back to Ibiza for the opening parties!

If I haven’t already mentioned it, I have a solid foundation of resolutions/things I hope to ‘tick off’ in 2010. In April I’ll have been in the UAE two years already (pow! boom!) and since it looks like I’m not expatriating myself to another country I’m going to have to move to another place. Such things have a definite expiry date. I’m seriously thinking of going to Etihad Plaza. Far closer to the airport, to Dubai, the apartments are spanking new and apparently quite impressive… What’s holding me back though of course, is that it’s still in the middle of nowhere.. a whore of a place to live in summertime for sure. 🙂

Someone posted this job link on PPRuNe and.. boy, I could just weep (there’s something about the idea of being based in HK.. hardcore Cathay Pacific hallucinations). If only I had Hong Kong residency, and if only I spoke fluent Mandarin and Cantonese, and if only I could work part-time only, and if only I had first class experience.. then this would be perfect for me. 😉

City of the Big Shoulders

Hog butcher for the world,
Tool maker, stacker of wheat,
Player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the big shoulders

– Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems (1916)

Carbide & Carbon Building

Carbon & Carbide building, Chicago (built in 1929). According to legend, the building was designed to resemble a dark green champagne bottle. (Dec 26th ’09)

From what I was able to see in a half-day, one building in Chicago really stood out, like the Flatiron in NYC. I was walking south along N. Michigan Ave, and I’m so glad I was on the opposite side of the road otherwise I might have passed right by it! What is it about buildings that is just so.. I don’t know if I can come up with the right word..? There’s a kind of presence and energy and comfort in a beautifully designed and placed structure.

And I am completely and utterly envious of all architects.

Anyway, I made a half-dozen fruitless picture attempts, trying to somehow bypass the snow with the viewfinder. Didn’t work. I just googled the building now while I was transfering pictures to my laptop and.. I’m floored! Carbide & Carbon is a landmark building. I mean sure, it shouldn’t be surprising at all because Chicago is full of, and well-known for, its architecture. Still, I like that it is also Art Deco, and designed by the sons of Burnham, Daniel and Hubert! That I can recognize a style that I apparently adore without realizing it at the time, heh.

I have another Chicago flight later next month and I can’t wait! I desperately want to go on an architectural tour of the city too, but for that I’ll wait until summertime.. 🙂

The base is covered in black polished granite, and the tower is a dark green terra cotta accented with gold terra cotta. Originally built as an office tower, the building opened as a boutique hotel in 2004. Because of this building’s success, its architects were commissioned to design the Cuneo Building two blocks away, which would have been the tallest in Chicago if the Great Depression had not resulted in the project’s cancellation. – Emporis.com

Plan of Chicago

Painting by Jules Gurein for Burnham’s ‘The Plan of Chicago’ (1909), one of the most influential documents in the history of urban planning.

Woooooohoooo!!

Just opened my crew mail for the first time in a week and see ‘Chicago Route Announced’ in the subject headline of an email from James Hogan, our CEO. So I open it up and am seriously screaming and squealing like a (deliriously happy) schizophrenic (that’s not very PC, sorry). I had no idea they were even considering Chicago, this is the first I’ve heard anything of it?!! You cannot even imagine how excited this makes me!!

By September 2009 I will absolutely have my US crew visa by then and will absolutely be doing this route no matter what I have to do!! Woop woop!!! Love. It. So like, ignore what I said before about a loss of interest in urban planning. If there’s any stateside city to reignite it it’d be Chicago. Oh, or New York. Or Portland, Oregon. Or….. 🙂

Interesting article from the Chicago Tribune here.