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Saturday my wife and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago.
http://www.artic.edu

When we were planning on coming here, I looked at the various cost of things.
Paying to get in and see the special exhibit was going to cost $80. Membership was $90.
So, I decided to go ahead and buy a membership as it would also get us a discount on food there and the gift shop there.

When we got there, 40 minutes before it opened, there was already a long line to get in.

Soon, a man put out a sign saying "Members may enter at 10 at the north entrance".
That was 1/2 hour early.
So, we walked around to the north entrance.

This meant crossing the train tracks that the museum spans.

The entrance went right into the line for the special exhibit.

At the time I thought the line was long, but having seen it later I understand it was quite short. We only waited about 10 minutes. Later the line was more than 2 hours.

They made a replica of Van Gogh’s bedroom. I guess you can Air BNB it if you want to sleep there. While that sounds interesting, I’m glad we stayed at a hotel.

They had benches.

It was interesting seeing the three paintings of the bedroom. There was only so close we could get due to the crowds.

They had other places made up like this paintings too.

They did have my favorite Van Gogh there.

Of course, we went to see the rest of the museum as well.
There are some very famous paintings there.

Ferris Bueller told me to go see this one.

And, more benches.

They had a lot of Georgia O’Keeffe, a favorite of my wife.

While we wandered around we saw a lot of people still waiting in line for the Van Gogh.

They do have lots of cool things.

When we had to cross the line, we saw it was long and getting longer.

We also wanted to see this one.

Their halberd is much nicer than my reproductions. And, it looks more dangerous too.

The exhibit was small. I’m told that their arms and armor section is closed for renovation and won’t reopen until next April. So, they have this one special thing to make up for that.

The whole exhibit was only in this corridor.

And, I don’t just mean small as there isn’t much. That’s true. But, some of what they have is physically very small.

At first I didn’t recognize these are they are somewhat out of context by themselves.

I did go check from time to time to see if there was a 68 year old woman I hadn’t seen since 1993 looking angry in the entrance.

I took this when the museum had been open about 4 hours and you can still see a long line of people waiting to get in going off to the right.

I don’t know how many thousands of people were there. 5? 10? They stood in line all day.
Maybe my sister was there and just never saw me. (No, I don’t think so either…)

I do go through museums fast. That’s why I like benches.

My wife loves glass paperweights. And, they have a large collection.

They also have a whole room dedicated to miniature rooms.

We ate lunch there. Museum in a big city. Not a cheap lunch. But, the food was very good. That isn’t always true.

I used to work at the other end of one of these conveyer belts when getting my engineering degree…

My wife loves stained glass and they had a big window.

The line persisted.

At this point it is an hour to the exhibit. There were folks more than three times as far back.

I was very glad we bought a membership and got to go in first thing.

I thought this was really cool.

They may call it a peg, but I know a demon hunting dagger when I see it.
Rune cut crystal tip? They were hunting big game.

My wife and I both liked this one.

They had several different versions of the same legends.

When we went to the gift shop we asked if they had a book about this exhibit. The woman searched their whole book collection and told us no.
So, we left.
But, she chased us out of the gift shop to tell us she found a book on Japanese poetry that had some of the same poets in it.
Above and beyond.
So, we bought some books. (I know, you’re shocked…)

I liked this painting a lot.