Henriët sings at St. Michael's Catholic Church in Old Town. Today she sang cantor for both the 9 and 11 services so was unable to be with us for breakfast. Andrew, Carla and I put a couple of loads of wash in then went down the street to have breakfast at the Melrose diner. After folding the laundry we headed out second service. Carla and I have only heard her practice a few times, so it was a total treat to hear her in a more performance mode.
I had taken the camera out of Carla's purse before church so I could load yesterday's pictures and I forgot to put it back in its place. As a result we have no pictures of the beautiful church with the gorgeous stained glass windows. Being protestant we weren't very familiar with the Catholic church order of service and knowing the responses. Today's lectionary topic was the annunciation of Mary; something we protestants don't focus on much. One side of the church had stained glass windows focusing on Christ and the other on Mary. The priest did a nice job of relating the images of Mary on the window with his homily.
At this point I'll turn the blog over to Carla to narrate the tour
After hearing Henriët sing so beautifully, we took a bus back to downtown Chicago for an architectural tour via boat on the Chicago River. It was about perfect weather-wise today, and the city looked magnificent. Chicago is all about BIG, and very proud of their prairie school of architecture. The tour guide was very knowledgable - he was a volunteer docent, who clearly has a great love of his city.
There are definitely lots more bridges over the Chicago River than the Willamette, but then again, the river isn't nearly as wide as in the Rose City.
Here is our tour guide - he talked non-stop for the whole 90 minutes, but it was all so interesting, it went by in no time.
Henriët rook this photo of one of Chicago's 'International' or modern style high rises.
These are from the lock separating Lake Michigan and the river, and looking back at the city. The lake is two feet higher than the river, evidently.
Howard and Andrew having fun in the sun.
The Wrigley Building is to the left - hard to tell, but it's very grand.
On the way back to Andrew's on the El - another great way to see Chicago.
The sign should have been pointing down, because that's where Howard clearly was.
It was such fun today, seeing the sights and getting to pal around with Andrew and Henriët. A wonderful day.
