Day 32: Moocowgo, Mariano's and vegan breakfast cookies

Day 32 was a Monday so that meant I was scheduled for a weight-training session with Damian in the morning. At that point, my back felt a lot better after resting it for over a week so I figured it would be safe to do some non-back-intensive lifting and I was correct! This time I arrived in Hyde Park a little early to have breakfast at Valois. I ordered a broccoli and feta omelet with hash browns and a hot tea. I can't really explain why I like Valois so much because I know that it's not objectively amazing food. I think it just makes me feel safe since I ate there for three years when I used to live at 53rd and Harper.

When I met up with Damian I found that he had had a party at his house the night before for new econ PhD students. I think he was still a little drunk because halfway through our session he ran upstairs and said, "Do you want some applesauce? I'm craving it right now." I didn't but he came downstairs 10 seconds later with a sizable bowl of applesauce and proceeded to eat it between sets. Ha! I can probably go back to more back-intensive stuff next week as long as I keep the weight very light.

That afternoon I met up with my friend Laura (she and I went to the Isla de Cafe food truck together) for lunch at Big Star and we sat outside in the shade. We had a very nice lunch of tacos, drinks and a huge salad. On my way home from lunch, I turned the corner and saw this on the sidewalk:

A moocowgo magnet.

I looked on the back and there was a twitter address, so I went to see what it was all about. All I could really glean is that someone brought it upon themselves to create 15 painted cow magnets and to scatter them all over Wicker Park and Bucktown to see if people would find them "grazing." Well, I mine was grazing on asphalt and was number 9 of 15. Here's the full set that was posted through their twitter account.

Days 29-31: Boston

Kevin and I spent last weekend in Boston. We had planned to go the following weekend but ticket prices surrounding September 11th were much cheaper. My sister, Sparky, and her husband, Phil, live in Somerville, so we ended up trying out an airbnb apartment in Cambridge, near Harvard Square. The price was great for the location, but I have to admit that it was awkward. They had a lot of clutter and it definitely had its own personality and aesthetic -- very different from my own as well as Kevin's -- so it was pretty obvious that we were staying in strangers' home. I think I'll stick to jetpads next time since their places aren't really lived in and we had a good experience using them in Vancouver.

Happy to be on the wharf.

My sister and Phil have lived in the Boston area for years and know all the good spots and we were happy to be taken around to places they've curated.

On Friday night we went to a small Italian tapas place in the South End called Coppa. Their pasta was some of the best I've ever had outside of Italy. We enjoyed the squid ink pasta with octopus, squid and olives and the special, which was orecchiette with a ragu of tripe and pork belly -- so effing good! The aracini, which are fried risotto balls stuffed with cheese, were the other highlight of the night.

Afterwards we did a walk-through of the Beehive, a live music venue not far away from Coppa, but left after a lap since their live musical act was on break. The interior of the place is very boudoir-cool but it was super crowded so I was happy to leave.

We called it a night after that and resisted the urge to snoop around the apartment. Although, when Sparky did sweep-through, she took a peek at their wedding album.

Days 27-28: Working on my perpetual calendar

One personal creative project that I wanted to tackle during this sabbatical was creating a perpetual calendar. What is a perpetual calendar you ask? It's a series of photos that you clip together that forms a calendar on your wall. Each photo can be one of three things: a letter that represents a day of the week, a number that represents the day of the month, or a "filler" photo. When the month ends, just rearrange the numbers and filler photos so that they line up on the correct days of the week. Sound confusing? Here's an example of my favorite one:

Photo taken from this Apartment Therapy post. Created by Little Brown Pen.

Cool, right? This one was made exclusively from photos taken in Paris. I saw this almost two years ago and have since then wanted to make my own with photos taken in Chicago. I took some photos downtown, in Wicker Park and around the Western stop off the blue line and stitched together this draft so far.

My mockup for the beginnings of my calendar.

I may end up changing many of these photos depending on how the colors relate to one another. I think what makes the Paris one so successful is the even color tone shared between all the photos. In case you were wondering what the source of each photo is:

Day 26: Ow my back

Did I mention that I moved around a lot of furniture last week? As part of Phase 2 for my home improvement, I put rugs in my living room. I didn't have to buy any since I took some from my parents home years ago when I moved into my first apartment in college. I put them in the basement for storage and decided it was high time they came back into my living space. Rugs are heavy and these rugs needed to go under my couch. My couch is a sectional so moving it is like moving two couches and each one is a fucking heavy couch. Newly empowered by my weight-lifting sessions with Damian, I thought that I could do all this moving on my own.

Horrible idea. I got the job done but my back was really sore afterwards. This was on a Thursday so by the time I got back from Vail and lifted with Damian on Tuesday I thought I would be fine. We started doing squats and by the ninth one I felt a strain in my lower legs and back. I had to stop and couldn't actually bend over afterwards. Later on, after talking with some friends who work out on a more regular basis, I found out that this was probably the worst thing I could have done to my back. I could barely move and we had to stop lifting.

We went to Valois for breakfast so that made things a little bit better. I found out that they now have validated parking with a $5 purchase at the Hyde Park Bank parking lot at 54th and Lake Park. Score! The also have President Obama's favorites posted at the entrance. He likes the steak and eggs.

I couldn't do anything active when I got home so I watched The Dilemma, starring Vince Vaughn, while icing my back with frozen peas. The movie wasn't a great one but I do like how they featured Chicago so prominently. They mention real streets, neighborhoods and restaurants and show how great life in Chicago can be. It's worth watching if you're already in love with this city.

My freezer has played a huge role in my sabbatical, nourishing and now healing me. Since I couldn't move, I ate some more freezer food at home.

Curried chicken with brown rice.

Have you ever hurt your back? Should I even try lifting next week?

Days 22-25: Vail or Altitude Sickness

I'm never going above 6,000 feet again in my life.

Kevin was invited to a wedding in Vail over Labor Day weekend so we packed up our things and left on Friday afternoon for what I thought would be a weekend of fun, food and outdoor activities. Wrong! I somehow failed to make the connection between Vail, skiing, high altitude and the fact that I do horribly in the upper parts of our atmosphere. It's my own fault, really. I should've known. I spent a summer doing astrophysics research in Flagstaff, Arizona (about 7,000 feet above sea level) and even after 10 weeks I still hadn't acclimated to the lower partial pressure of oxygen. I got winded walking up the stairs and could only survive the tamest of hikes after a few weeks of exposure.

Clouds from the plane. I should've seen this as the ominous premonition it was.

When we landed in Denver, the "mile high" city (a mile is 5,280 feet), I was perfectly fine. Vail, however, is about three hours west and three thousand feet higher. During the drive from Denver to Vail, you experience even higher altitudes -- at one point I saw a sign indicating that we were a little over 10,000 feet. On the way there, we stopped in Dillion for dinner at the Dillon Dam Brewery. We each had a beer and buffalo burger with grilled onions. We should've split one. I felt guilty for only eating half of it so I forced myself to eat another quarter, you know, so I wouldn't waste as much food. This was a horrible idea. On the last leg of the trip to Vail, the food expanded like a salty bomb in my stomach and I nearly puked when I spilled out of the car upon arriving at the hotel. The bellhop probably thought I was drunk.

Day 21: Phase 2 - Kitchen Seating

Last week I finally installed a seating area in my kitchen. It's been a long time coming and involved a lot of shopping, planning, budgeting and reshuffling.

Before

See my kitchen before? My mobile cart was a stationary open-storage for unsightly items and there were bags all over the floor -- dry food storage overflow. Solving my dry food storage problem during Phase 1 opened up a lot more space in my kitchen and made it possible for me to install a seating area. Now I can have breakfast, meals for two and a comfortable place for people to hang out while I'm cooking.

Days 18-21: Vintage Furniture Shopping for Phase 2 of Home Improvement

I love vintage furniture. I spent a good portion of Week 3 rooting around vintage and vintage-industrial furniture stores in Chicago. Number one on my list was Urban Remains. When you compare the inventory of the big industrial salvage stores in Chicago -- Urban Remains, Salvage One, Architectural Artifacts -- Urban Remains has the most pieces that appeal to me. I think they do a great job of finding interesting industrial pieces that are practical for modern homes. Unfortunately, they're also very expensive.

Urban Remains

Urban Remains used to have a warehouse and a separate showroom but recently moved to a new location where they consolidated the contents of their previous two locations. It's definitely filled to the brim. Walking around this store by myself, undisturbed, for nearly an hour was probably one of the happiest moments of my sabbatical. Stores like this one are usually full of annoying customers and snooty salespeople on the weekends so looking around during the week is a real luxury.

Day 17: Windows on the War and BBQing

On Sunday I went to the Windows on the War exhibit at the Art Institute that showed posters designed by Moscow-based artists right after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union during World War II. I'd just learned about poster design and even designed a poster of my own for Graphic Design 1 at the Art Institute, so I was especially interested in seeing this exhibit. To my surprise, non-flash photography was permitted throughout the entire exhibit (excluding a handful of pieces) so I snapped quite a few photos for future reference and documentation.

This era was all about opposition between different groups so I was especially interested in posters that had split compositions. Here are some below and more after the jump.

Benefits of communism on the left, evils of capitalism on the right.

I started this exhibit inspecting every piece closely, reading every plaque and every numbered marker. After seeing the third "10" marker, I started wondering how much more there was.

Long live our native, invincible Red Army!

Day 16: Food truck social

On Saturday I took a break from my home improvement and had lunch at the Food Truck Social event put on by Time Out Chicago. I thought it was a good event to get awareness about food trucks up in the city but the event itself was 'meh.' I forgot my camera so I had to snap some photos with my phone.

The pop-up truck featuring Bill Kim.

I visited the pop-up truck featuring Bill Kim of Urban Belly and Belly Shack first. He was selling a cold egg noodle salad with shrimp.

Egg noodle salad with shrimp.

It was fine. Nothing I couldn't make myself at home. I thought it was smart of him to offer a cool, refreshing salad on a blazing hot day. Next, I went to the Lillie's Q truck for a pulled pork slider with a side of coleslaw. Perfectly fine. Then I got a lamb sandwich and a side of Italian fries at Hummingbird Kitchen's truck. The lamb sandwich smelled a bit gamey and had heavy, winter greens on it. Really heavy for such a hot day. The fries were fine. Ommegang brewery was there selling beers so I got the Beligan pale ale and sampled the amber ale. Both were good.

This was a weird event. There were a lot of trucks that represented restaurants there and I honestly didn't see the point of waiting on line in the heat to sample food that had been sitting around when I could be getting it made fresh in the comfort of a restaurant. The trucks that represented single business entities, like the Wagyu Wagon and the Tamale Spaceship, had lines that were at least 20 minutes deep. I sat across from a man who had waited in the Wagyu Wagon line and he was enjoying a sloppy joe. He said it was good but fell silent when I asked him if it was worth the wait.

I like the idea of food trucks, I like that this event gave them good exposure, but waiting in long lines in the heat is a drag. Period.

I ran into a former coworker on the way out of the event and he was with his wife, who I later learned is a vegetarian. After recapping the items that I sampled, he replied, "Wow, that's a lot of meat." And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure if there were many vegetarian options outside of the dessert trucks and some vegetarian tamales at the Tamale Spaceship truck.

Did you go to the event? What did you think?

Day 14: Gene and Jude's and Hala Kahiki

As I mentioned in my last post, I took a trip to Ikea on Day 14, but I didn't mention that I also met some former coworkers at Gene and Jude's for hot dogs and then Hala Kahiki tiki lounge for drinks afterwards. We'd gone to the tiki bar for drinks on the second to last day I had at my previous job and stumbled over to Gene and Jude's afterwards. This time, I thought it'd be sensible to eat something before I started drinking so I started the evening with hot dogs.

There are only two menu items at Gene and Jude's, a single or a double, the latter has two hot dogs in one bun. A dog with everything falls just a few ingredients shy of a traditional Chicago dog with onions, relish, mustard and sport peppers, but is still just as amazing. Every order comes with fries and they roll dog and fries together -- I prefer to eat the dog and fries separately but I wonder if anyone just eats them both at the same time.

Dog with fries rolled onto it.

Dog without fries on top.

Ketchup is demonized at Gene and Jude's so if you ever go there, do not ask for it! The food gets packaged up quickly and people either take it to go or eat at the counters. They have a lot of staff preparing food but there was a small bottleneck at the register.

Days 14-16: Home Improvement Phase 1

Phase 1 of my home improvement targeted my kitchen and bathroom but ended up affecting my bedroom and office as well.

I had wanted a shelf above my toilet since the day I moved in but never got around to installing one. I went to Ikea last Thursday and bought a shelf and brackets for under $20 total. Armed with a borrowed drill and mounting set, it took me less than half an hour to drill holes, insert rubber anchors, and drill the shelf with brackets into my plaster walls. The only annoying part of the process was marking the holes for where the screws would mount the brackets into the wall. It's surprisingly tough to hold a shelf up and mark the wall while keeping the bubble in the middle of the level.

Before

After

I was pretty pleased with the outcome and now I have the barrier I always wanted between my toiletries and the toilet as well as room to spread those toiletries out. Next, I tackled a clutter problem in my kitchen.

Day 13: Native Foods, FWB, and bootcamp

Since I'd spent Day 12 cooped up inside I made sure to take full advantage of Day 13.

11am: Green City Market. I'd never gone to the farmer's market on a Wednesday before and was excited to see if it would be considerably less crowded. When I go on Saturdays, I try to get there between 9 and 9:30am to beat the crowds. I figured I could arrive later since it was a Wednesday, that, and I was up late watching 30 Rock on Hulu Plus. It was still pretty packed but not the zoo I'm used to on Saturdays.

This is the greatest time of year to visit the market in my opinion because there is so much to choose from: tomatoes, peppers, peaches, plums, corn, cucumbers, melons, lettuces, squashes, onions and more! You could easily get all of your regular grocery shopping done at the market this time of year. I got a ton of fruit and veg and two pounds of lamb spare ribs from Mint Creek Farm.

12pm: Native Foods Cafe. I forgot to mention that I did venture out on Day 12 to get some envelopes from Walgreens. On the way, I walked into RGB Lounge where they were having a vintage clothing sale. I bought this dress since it fits me pretty well but I'm not sure how or where I'll wear it yet:

80's meets Minnie Mouse.

When I purchased the dress they gave me a $5 promotional gift card for Native Foods Cafe, the new outpost for the California-based vegetarian- and vegan-friendly restaurant chain. I was extremely skeptical of this place since it seemed to freely borrow and, judging solely from the menu, bastardize global cuisines as it saw fit. Maybe I was just angsty over it opening right when Earwax Cafe closed. Even though I had never had a chance to try Earwax, I don't like seeing this neighborhood empty of independent establishments and fill with chains like Native Foods Cafe and Paradise Cantina.

Day 12: Re-imagining my apartment and rigatoni

Since I'd had a jam-packed weekend, I spent a rainy Day 12 mostly inside, cleaning and evaluating each room in my apartment, taking note of what didn't work and how I could fix it. I created a purchasing list and took a trip to Ikea on Day 14. Each room had a different problem but each problem resulted in my not wanting to spend much time in that room, and by extension, my apartment. Before I took the time to think about how I could transform my apartment into a place where I wanted to spend time, I had made my mind up that this was going to be my last year. Now that I've implemented Phase 1 of my home improvements, it's become way more put-together and I'm not so sure I'd want to move out next year.

Since I stayed in on Day 12, I continued eating through the contents of my freezer. I had braised the short rib and eye of round in garlic, dried guajillo chiles, coffee and red wine so I thought I'd make a rich lunch out of it. I took the short ribs off the bone, shredded all the meat, returned it to the pot with the braising liquid, and simmered it while I cooked up some rigatoni. Once the pasta was cooked, I sauteed the meat sauce and pasta in a separate pan and finished it with a pat of butter. After I removed it from the heat, I added some sambal oelek, white vinegar, chopped cilantro and chopped green onion.

The rigatoni. Incredible.

The idea for the final touches came from my dad's preparation of ox tail soup. The soup is so rich that you have to cut it with some vinegar and then add chopped cilantro, green onion and celery tops. If I'd had any celery, I would've used the leafy tops.

Do you have gripes about your apartment? Have you ever moved because you thought it would be easier just to start all over?

Day 11: Whales and Apes!

Day 11 was chock full of activities! I consider it to be the first day where I took full advantage of my sabbatical.

10:30am: My friend Damian taught me how to bench press. I wasn't my first time since I'd weight-trained for high school track but it's been a while and I wanted proper guidance before diving back in. Safety first! He and his roommates rent a house in Hyde Park and their basement is filled with weight-training equipment. They even used to have a "one ton rule" where everyone who lived in the house had to lift one ton of weight before bedtime every single night. 

We found out that my maximum for bench pressing is somewhere between 65 and 70 lbs. After benching, he showed me how to do squats and then hanging clean and jerks. My main objectives for weight-training are running fast and looking pretty. Even though we only did three exercises, I could feel the impact across my entire body and was cripplingly sore the next day. We lift again next week! 

1pm: Lunch at Piccolo Sogno. While walking through Wicker Park Fest this year, I spotted a deal on one of those a la card decks where each card is a $10 gift certificate to a different restaurant. Since they're only good for a year and we were already half way through, I snagged the deck for $20 (it's normally $30). I used my first card for lunch outdoors at Piccolo Sogno. Their patio is an urban oasis. 

There were a lot of moneyed people dining there.

We got: the beet salad, not good and not Italian; fava beans and pecorino with arugala; clam and pancetta pizza; and fresh pasta made from farro flour with truffle oil, asparagus and wild mushrooms. I liked the pasta and pizza the most.

Days 9 & 10: First Sabbatical Weekend

I have to be honest, Week 1 freaked me out a little bit. I'd been working almost every day for three years so I wasn't used to having so much time off and spending it at home. I got bored.

Things started turning around on Day 8 (Friday) when my friend Jamie came to hang with me. We had lunch at Longman and Eagle, which was surprisingly bad. I'd been for lunch and brunch before but I think we ordered the wrong stuff this time. She got the PBR breakfast and I got the Greek salad and a side of home fries. Both not good. Anyway, having her around really added some structure to my day and we finished it out with dinner at Silver Cloud, which I liked quite a bit. Jamie and I split the extra deluxe house salad with blackened chicken and green goddess dressing and a side of garlic bread. Very comforting.

On Day 9, I purchased quails, pork tenderloin and skirt steak at Paulina Meat Market. I'd been planning an Asian barbecue for Day 10. That evening, I attended the closing night for the Grant Park Music Festival. Since one of my former coworkers sings in the chorus, he reserved some seats for me in the fancy area! That's right, I got to sit in the seats instead of on the lawn.

Look how close!

The Grant Park Orchestra, the Grant Park Chorus, four soloists, and conductor Carlos Kalmar performed Verdi's Requiem. Full details about the performance can be found using this link. It was indeed majestic and sitting in the seats was a cool experience as well. However, there were two uncool portions of the evening:

Days 6-8: PBR Marketing and File Cabinets

If you read Day 5, you'll know that I basically spent Day 6 hungover, curled up in the fetal position.

I spent Day 7 cleaning my apartment and made a significant discovery. Either through denial or delusion, I've failed to acknowledge that I need a paper filing system in my home. I've always thought that I could scan important documents (I don't have a scanner) or photograph them and store them digitally on an external hard drive.

The problem with that idea is that I still create a "processing" pile that inevitably turns into an "I'll look at and deal with this later" pile. No more! I pared down several piles of paper into one and will try to find a small flat-file storage system this week. Examples of such systems from Urban Remains can be found here, here, here, and here. A more traditional, but still vintage/industrial option could be getting a couple of these. If a vintage one proves too pricey, I'll probably just pick up one of these from the container store.

That night I had a wonderful dinner at Chickpea restaurant, located at Chicago and Damen. If you haven't yet been, go now. It's one of the best Middle Eastern restaurants I've been to in the city. On the opposite corner of that intersection, I noticed an awesome PBR ad.

A pig hand puppet holds a can of PBR.

They picked a neighborhood where their beer is very popular, Ukrainian Village, and they recognized that their market doesn't want standard-issue, mass-produced beer ads. I spotted another in Wicker Park on Day 8.

Day 5: Isla de Cafe Slash Dousing My Caffeinated Paranoia With Alcohol

On Tuesday I tried out Isla de Cafe, Humboldt Park's newest food and coffee truck, with my friend Laura. I had heard about it through Time Out Chicago but had also seen it on my way to work (I used to commute on North Ave). You can see the airstream if you're driving on North Ave between Humboldt Blvd and Kedzie.

The pickup window.

We ordered two sandwiches, the mallorca and the jamon y queso. As for coffee, Laura got a large iced coffee and I got a cortado, which is an espresso with a small amount of milk. We met Cristina, one of the co-owners, and the head chef, Luis. 

Luis presses our sandwiches to order.

The mallorca.

The mallorca was delicious. It reminded me of when bacon becomes friends with french toast at breakfast. The jamon y queso was okay -- I'm more excited to try the other sandwiches than to get that one again. I think I'll have to get the pastrami next time. The coffee was kick-you-in-the-face strong and delicious. After eating our sandwiches, we went to the window a second time to get some desserts. We chose a guava pastry and a sweet corn cake. Since the coffee was so good the first time, I got a second drink, the chichaito, which is espresso with anise syrup. 

Day 4: Ohmygodmyfreezer

Have you ever seen that show Hoarders? It's about people who keep way too many things, often the result of a traumatic experience or mental illness. Last weekend when I opened my freezer in front of my family, I felt like I was the hoarder on an episode of Hoarders.

What, yours doesn't look like this?

I only realized how crazy it had become when I heard myself talking about it.

"Oh c'mon, it's not that bad."

"I keep animal carcasses so I can make stock!"

"I can easily fit four pints of ice cream in here. See, you just wedge one right here, another one right here .."

"I don't know how old that fruit is."

Day 3: Kitchen Table At Next, Tour of Thailand

Let's not pretend this is something it's not. Dining at Next wasn't the only thing I did on Sunday, but that's why most people will read this post. What makes this post different from other Next restaurant posts? We're Thai, my parents grew up in Bangkok and own an upscale Thai restaurant, we consider ourselves food enthusiasts and critical thinkers. So without further ado, let me launch into "Day 3" which is just a review of our experience at Next.

In case you aren't native to Chicago, Next is the latest project by Grant Achatz. The restaurant reinvents itself every three months to represent a different time and place. The first menu was Paris 1906 and until October you can take a Tour of Thailand if you're lucky enough to get tickets. Yeah, tickets. Getting a seat at Next is a pain in the ass. I don't consider that a complaint -- it's a fact. You can watch and read more about the restaurant and saga here, here and here.

We miraculously snagged tickets for the kitchen table and had dinner there last night. We chose four standard pairings, consisting of wine, beer and mixed drinks, and two non-alcoholic pairings. Just as a disclaimer, it was dark and I did the best job I could taking photos without using a flash. Flash photography isn't prohibited, but it is tacky.

A view of the kitchen from the table. My sister poses.

We'd been talking about this meal for a while and my parents, my sister and her husband flew into Chicago to dine at Next (and to visit me!). The exclusivity and hype move many to make a very special trip for this meal but my family is not the type to romanticize -- I was in the minority of the group because I was optimistic about the meal's outcome.

Let's talk about the food.

Day 2: Chizakaya, seafood tower, and gelato

Yesterday was both day 2 of the sabbatical and my family's visit.

11:30am: Lunch at Chizakaya. I heard through Tasting Table that they started offering lunch recently so we made a reservation for six and sat in the back room. When my family gets together we can get kind of obnoxious sometimes so I thought it'd be best if we sequestered ourselves off from everyone else. I guess not that many people know about lunch there because we were the only diners for the first hour or so that we were there. We met Harold Jurado, the executive chef and proprietor, and he made us a delicious lunch. 

Harold Jurado

The lunch menu is small -- a few appetizers and a handful of noodle dishes -- but we managed to get some dinner and off-menu items. Even though we were boisterous and demanding, Harold was cool and made us some okonomiyaki.

Okonomiyaki: bonito flakes on top.

Day 1: Andersonville

Thursday was my last day at my previous job and I don't begin my new one until September 19.

My parents flew into town yesterday morning and we had a full day of activities.

11am: Calumet Fisheries. We chatted with Carlos, the manager, and he gave us a salmon head to snack on. He showed us the smokehouse and told us about how he'd like to live in a quiet place on the countryside. The smoked salmon, smoked shrimp and fried shrimp were, as usual, out-of-control good.

12:30pm: Checked my parents into Hotel Allegro, part of the Klimpton properties. Their lobby looks like a circus. We play with a Chow Chow.

I didn't have her oral consent to take this photo so I'm taking care to hide her identity.

2:15pm: Walked around Andersonville.

Things I found out about Andersonville on the internet:

• After the fire, you couldn't build wooden houses in Chicago and Swedish immigrants couldn't yet afford brick or stone so they settled in the city's northern limits. 
• In 1910, Chicago had the second largest Swedish population in the world after Stockholm, Sweden.

There are a lot of cool stores on Clark Street and we spent almost two hours on the stretch between 5200 and 5400 N.