Category: Chicago

Oct

1

2016 Summer Olympics

Posted by Darya Mead

I am sort of an Olympics geek. I love the games, both the summer and the winter.  My mom actually took my sister and me and two friends to the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games. We had tickets for the Women’s Downhill Skiing event, but if you remember, the Games were a bit of a mess and transportation to the venues was a fiasco. We never made it to the mountain and got Compulsory Ice Dancing tickets as compensation; still it was an amazing experience.

Tomorrow the host city of the 2016 Summer Games will be announced in Copenhagen, Denmark. The front-running candidates are Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Madrid. President and Michelle Obama will be there to forward the Chicago bid, which because of their star power is leading Rio as the top pick. Continue reading »

2 Comments | Filed Under Chicago, Culture, Japan, Olympics, Spain, Sports, United States

Jan

19

Travels in Obama’s Neighborhood

Posted by Larry Habegger

With inauguration excitement building to a crescendo in Washington and around the country, saying that interest in Barack Obama is high is like saying the sun rose this morning. People want to know where he came from, what his favorite places are, what he likes to do in his spare time.

We can all get a little insight into this by poking around his neighborhood, and thanks to Gayle Keck we can explore Obama’s Chicago. Her story in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle travel section takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the new president’s former haunts.

Going back farther, the online feature Hawaii Insider looks at tours of Obama’s Hawaii, including pointing readers to a site loaded with Obama-related Hawaii offerings: Obama’s Hawaii Neighborhood. The site links to loads of background reading on the new president and offers a walking tour of Makiki, the district of Honolulu where he lived as a boy.

If you can’t make it to Washington for the inauguration, maybe you can get your Obama fix in Chicago or Hawaii. But with all of this interest in Barack Obama, will the Obama Washington DC tour be next?

2 Comments | Filed Under Chicago, Hawaii, Illinois