Chicago reminds me of Frankfurt - lots of skyscrapers but very boring. Chicago is also pretty much the murder capital of the US if I'm not mistaken.
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Have you been to Chicago? If so, have you been outside of the Loop?
I just came back from a trip there yesterday (opportunity to visit after a great Strange Loop in St Louis) and I've been walking through downtown-ish areas most of the time - from the lake to union park in the west.
People I met were nice and all but also felt conservative/boring (not many flashy people on the streets) - I didn't find any interesting meetups when I was there either.
I'm a huge Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller's Day Off fan so I was doubly disappointed :(
I'd be happy to learn that I just did it the wrong way / had bad luck and all the cool folks are somewhere else.
I wanted to put your comment in context. On the area, downtown is not particularly interesting. There are more charismatic areas radiating out from there. You're onto something with the lack of flash. It's a Midwestern city, so that kind of goes with the territory. That said, I'd argue that that's part of what constitutes Chicago's appeal: it has many of the amenities of New York (great food, culture, and architecture as well as reasonably good nightlife) with less conceit and more Midwestern nice.
As for the murder concern, other commenters (tptacek in particular) covered that.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, I'll probably come back some day and I will try to think of what you wrote here then :)
Regarding the "murder concern" it was more like being seriously disturbed by it.
The downtown area seemed safe enough for me to stroll around also during night time but waking up to a news reporter somewhat happily announcing that the doctors saved the baby whose pregnant mother just became victim to a drive-by shooting in south Chicago the evening before is just.. I don't know, fucked-up shit like that doesn't happen (often? ever?) where I'm coming from. All in all there where 5 dead and 43 injured over that weekend alone. So that clearly played a role in my remarks regarding Chicago and my feelings towards staying there.
That's true. I didn't intend to be dismissive. Chicago does have a serious issue with violence.
I hope you do get another chance to visit. I haven't gone there in a few years, but I have good memories of the city.
We're not a flashy city, but what we lack in Subway station Boba Fetts, we make up for in better whiskey distribution.
It's usually not fair to judge a place from a tourist perspective - regularly drinking with the locals might be a better way to learn about them ;) Next time I'll go to a local bar in order to properly get into the "Illinois Blues" Skip James style.