Things I Like - Chicago

LFW: This should probably be titled Things I Love (but then, so should all the other categories). There are many reasons to love Chicago, and probably a few to dislike it (the never ending winters would be one) but I've lived in a number of great cities over the past 20 years - San Francisco, D.C., London, New York - and Chicago definitely ranks at the top.

So what makes Chicago great? I'll cover things like architecture, restaurants, the lakefront, museums and my favorite neighborhoods in later posts. I want to start things off with the most exciting thing that's happened here in years. I know that this has been covered to death all over the place, but election night in Chicago was unbelievable.

Mr. White wanted to have access to multiple information sources while the returns were coming in, so we had dinner at home with a celebratory bottle of champagne followed by a nice Bordeaux before making our way down to Grant Park. To be honest, I'm not sure I would have agreed to go down there at 10:00 if I hadn't been a little sauced.

But I'm glad we did - I've never seen anything like it in my life. Thousands of people all celebrating together, the absolute joy in the air was tangible. When the acceptance speech was over, we made our way back home, walking up the middle of Michigan Avenue with the crowd.

I'll never forget it.