We arrived in Chicago on Friday, just hours after the disappointing news that Chicago was knocked out of contention for hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics in the first round of voting. Although there were the expected public expressions of “shock” and sadness by various officials aired on the evening news, we haven’t detected any signs of mourning by the general public. In fact, we’ve heard more negative comments about the weather (rainy and cool) than the Olympics, and we’ve been out and about enjoying the town in spite of the damp. On Friday evening we headed to Greektown with our daughters and four of their friends for a delicious family-style dinner at Costa’s (thanks to John Wroblewski for the recommendation). The food was hot, tasty and plentiful and the service prompt and friendly. I didn’t think I’d be interested in eating again for the rest of the weekend after that meal, but Chicago offers waaaay too many great options of a wide range of cuisines to actually follow through on that thought. Saturday was our designated tourist destinations day. We took advantage of the price break offered through the Chicago CityPass, which for $69 provided entrance to a number of venues, including several museums and a trip to the top of either the Hancock or Sears (now Willis) towers. We began with a trip to the 103rd-floor SkyDeck of the Sears building (luckily, the clouds lifted enough to give us great views of the entire region and out over Lake Michigan), and everyone in our party even ventured out onto the new all-plexiglass “Ledge” for an unobstructed view straight down to the streets and river below. We spent the entire afternoon at the Shedd Aquarium, a really magnificent facility that will be celebrating its 80th anniversary on the shores of Lake Michigan next year. We enjoyed a short program in the newly refurbished amphitheater which featured their frisky Pacific white-sided dolphins, checked out the beluga whales and were impressed with the Amazon and Wild Reef exhibits. Saturday evening we headed up to Wrigleyville. Happily, my appetite had returned with a vengeance, and we stopped in for a dinner of tapas-like dishes at Moxie. Five of us ordered 10 different dishes and were not disappointed with a single one. This is not the kind of food you’d expect to find within a block of Wrigley Field perhaps, but we’re already looking forward to our next trip to Chicago for a return visit. After our tummies were thoroughly satisfied, we strolled half a block up the street to Improv Olympics for the “Whirled News” improv show. Before the performance, audience members are encouraged to sift through a number of the day’s newspapers spread out on tables on the stage. They cut out the headlines and first two paragraphs of stories that capture their attention and post them on a bulletin board at the back of the playing area. The cast then uses these current events items as springboards for a series of improv skits in the first hour of the show. After a brief intermission, the cast returns and uses issues offered by the audience from their personal lives to again create short improvised scenes. We thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment and decided we would happily check out some of iO’s other shows in the future.  Although we packed a lot into our first 36 hours in Chicago, there is still so much more to see, do and eat! The Windy City is certainly a lively, exciting, interesting town to visit and one to which we always look forward to returning.  — Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader