Neat things to see in Chicago other than the usual tourist stuff??

Answer 1

i'm glad you've made the choice not to do a postcard tour of chicag. But there's waaaaay to many things to say so i would reccomend buying Timeout Chicago. It's one of the greatest guides to Chicago and it comes out weekly! or just the website www.timeoutchicago.com

Answer 2

Watch the Saturday morning amateur soccer players in the park at Lake Shore Drive and Montrose Ave.

Go stand next to the Blommer Chocolate Factory in the River west area and sniff the air. The entire neighborhood smells like chocolate. They also have an outlet store that sells all kinds of chocolate.(http://www.columbiachronicle.com/back/2003_fall/2003-09-29/citybeat2.html)

Check out the Mexican Fine Arts Museum (http://www.mfacmchicago.org/)

Go to one of the 20 gazillion small theater company productions in the city. Most are pretty cheap and have some great productions, both famous works and debut plays. Look in the Chicago Reader for listings and addresses.

Walk down west Devon Ave. It has a large Indian/Pakistani population. Between the people and the stores, you'll like you took a trip to India without leaving town. Pretty cool.

Get some friends together and go play Whirly Ball (http://www.whirlyball.com/)

Go watch the dogs act like nuts at Dog Beach in Belmont Harbor (http://chicago.citysearch.com/profile/35190929/?brand=smx_yp-nc). It's pretty funny.

Go to breakfast at Ann Sathers in Andersonville, a Chicago neighborhood on North Clark Street(http://annsather.com/restaurants/locations.shtml). Eat some lingonberry jelly or a cinnamon roll. Then walk it off by doing a little window shopping in the neiborhood. Stop in the new Brown Elephant resale shop down the street. You might find something cool.

Answer 3

A lot of neat answers so far.
If you call the visitors bureau you can set up a tour with them and they will take you to one of several different neighborhoods of your choice. We chose the Polish neighborhood on Milwaulkee St. It was great. You get to take the bus and the subway (city foots the bill for this) and your tour guide is a local and will take you to THE local places...family owned and operated. We went to a Polish grocery store. It was incredible! I would highly recommend this tour. I believe they also do Little Italy, China town and others. The tour guide knows their stuff in these tours. They are volunteers and people who have lived in or around these neighborhoods their whole lives. AND - it's free.

Answer 4

On the northeast corner of Damen and Foster Avenues, a man has created his own giant water wheel that works year round. It's very visible from the sidewalk. He adds antifreeze to the water so it doesn't freeze in the winter. He also made a water well alingside the water wheel that has a bucket that fills with water and then pours into the well. Very creative!

Also visit Merz Apothecary at Lincoln Avenue and Lawrence that is like walking into a European toiletry shop. Fabulous!

Answer 5

You could head outside of the city into the historical suburbs like Oak Park (Hemmingway's birthplace) and look at the Frank Lloyd Wright homes.

Also lots of the suburbs have festivals with food, concerts and crafts. Most have a small entry fee.

Try going on Metromix.com they might tell you more info.

Answer 6

Go see the Chicago Lions RFC play rugby. I bet you've never seen a match.

Answer 7

Plays!!!
Visit http://www.hottix.org/ to see plays at incredibly cheap prices. They are too good to be true - but I've used it before and found it so convenient. www.chicagoplays.com allows you to look for every one of the plays in the city.