Rush Hour Chicago
So this weekend, in addition to 1. going out Friday to Dylan’s to meet Bobby’s co-workers (who all – strange yet hilarious – decided to wear matching t-shirts and blazers), 2. hanging out at Bridget and John’s place Saturday with Amanda and a new friend Jen from the UK, 3. going to a kickass Cubs game in the freezing cold yesterday, and 4. having a big pasta dinner at our place with J.Win and Mandy last night…we made it a point to head over to Sandro’s Photography Studio in Ukranian Village for a 
Rush Hour Tasting on Saturday evening – we were VERY pleasantly surprised.
There was a performance with violinist Jasmine Lin and cellist Clancy Newman – such a great pair. This was one of the coolest concerts I’ve been to in a long time. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been a huge classical music fan – but in the same right I was pretty much blown away by the talent and emotion displayed by these two human beings and their instruments. This event may have changed my mind. :)
Experiencing a concert like this in person is really intense and satisfying. It’s like the two artists were having a dramatic conversation or interaction with music. I could hear anger and excitement and love as well as soft whispers and loud shouts. It was seriously really cool.
And all the money raised on Saturday funds Rush Hour Concerts every Tuesday of the summer at St. James Cathedral in Chicago. If you have a free Tuesday, you should check it out…we’re glad we did. (Big thanks to Rebecca Levy – president of the Fanfare Committee for inviting us.)
Replenishing Body Kiosk – London Design Museum
Bobby and I went to the Design Museum today in London…in South Bank (near the Tower Bridge) and it was so awesome…wayyy better than the Tate Modern. :)
This design work was created by Ross Phillips, head of interactive at SHOWstudio, the online fashion broadcasting company, founded by Nick Knight.
It was inspired by the fact that the human body is made up of 60% water, used a 25 section, touch screen video grid where visitors were invited to make a one-second video recording of a close-up section of their body, which was added to a constantly moving, composite video portrait.
Stuck in Bloody London ;)
Bobby and I got up this morning thinking we were going to the airport and were surprised to find out that our flight had been canceled due to weather…and that there weren’t any flights to Chicago until tomorrow. Although it’s not so good for our pocket books…we did get to stay at a cooler hotel in a different part of town and we got to go to the Design Museum, which I was really sad we had missed. It was raining like crazy today so it wasn’t as fun walking from the tube…but it was well worth the wet walk.
There were lots of really amazing designed objects/furniture/fashion but our favorite at the museum was this interactive video installation. I’m going to post a video of that above this post if you want to watch it. Basically you could hit “record” and choose a spot on the screen and you’d record a one second video of yourself that would be placed on the projected screen. The coolest part about it is that you’re little video stays there until someone comes in behind you and chooses that same square to replace you. Until then, you really are a part of that art work. :) You can see in the video (that I’ll be posting next) that Bobby and I are doing some silly stuff…it was really fun!
Today …so far…
Woke up late – Bobby literally ran out the door for work before I fully got my eyes open…my feet and knees were really aching from the walk last night so I lazied around for awhile in the room until Lunch…took the bus down to bobby’s office and went to the Vitra Design Museum – took a look at lots of different contemporary/modern furniture. Bobby is ready to throw out all of our new living room furniture and buy cooler stuff now. haha. There was some really great stuff in there including this couch we liked for about $16,000.00 – haha. Yeah, uh, don’t think that one would ever make it to our house….little bit out of my price range, right?
So then we went to grab a bite to eat, got some sandwiches/wraps…then Bobby went back to work and I wandered around the neighborhood to a bunch of little shops and open markets. After finding this one market I really wished we would’ve eaten lunch there. There were all these vendors with different hot foods and cakes/danishes…the smells were literally engulfing me…I was like “Why am i full right now!? I could be eating a kebab or a cupcake or handful of spiced almonds”.
After the yummy smelling market – I went to a few more shops and found this AWESOME little bookstore called BookArtBookshop.com – I must’ve been in there for an hour looking at all the little art books and stationary and postcards…it was like shellie heaven. :) I came home after that and I’m waiting now for Bobby to get home from work so we can find something for dinner and hopefully go ride the London Eye (ferris wheel). Cheers!!
:) happy
Hiii…London is awesome. It’s been about 24 hours now that I’ve been here and I think we’ve almost seen everything. haha. JK. We just happened to get a little lost last night after Bobby misplaced his blackberry and ended up trekking all over the place. It’s so cool here, so much to look at. Last night we had dinner at this little greek place and had some fish-n-chips, hummus and flat bread and some kind of yummy beef skewers…oh and then chocolate cake that was sooo delicious!
…then we took the Tube to London Bridge and then the bus over to Piccadilly Circus…took a bike trolley around and somehow lost Bobby’s blackberry in the process (even though the bike trolley was so fun it kind of had a bad ending with us losing the phone and walking about 2 miles back to where we started to wait for that trolley driver to come back to home base….although we never saw him again.) This led to a very long walk home since it was late and the Underground trains had closed. It was a LONG walk but we saw so much cool stuff in the process and since alot of people weren’t out it felt like London was all ours (especially near the Bank Station Tube Stop (check out the myspace pictures)…nice peaceful and quiet walk all the way home – just really enjoyed it.