Exploring the Multifaceted Diversity of Chicago - A Cultural Odyssey

If you've never been to Chicago City, you may be surprised to know that there is so much more to this great city than skyscrapers, lots of people, and fantastic food. While it is in fact the wonderful people of this city that make it the exciting place to visit that it has become, there is so much more to this city than what you'll see on the television shows and in the news.

Chicago City is a city full of exciting people from all kinds of backgrounds with all kinds of hopes and dreams for the future and experiences of the past. You will find artwork here like few other places in the world, you will see more nature here than in most big cities around the world, and you will enjoy seeing more cultures and nationalities represented in the space of an hour in this city than most people who live elsewhere experience in their entire lives.

Chicago City is the true melting pot of the world, and the rest of America is simply trying to catch up.

You will find music and art that is representative of the many cultures that call this grand city home. You will experience the sights, sounds, and scents of worlds that are exotic and foreign simply by walking down neighborhood streets where people are cooking dinner at night. You will hear more languages in one day than you probably ever dreamed of and while you may stand around with sensory overload thinking anyone would be crazy to live like this, most of them are looking at you thinking you'd be crazy to live anywhere else.

This is perhaps the greatest thing about visiting Chicago City. You get to experience for a moment the excitement that comes from living in this fascinating city. You get to understand what it is like for those living there. And you get to understand firsthand what it is like to be alone in a city of millions and yet by being there, being one of them, belonging somehow to this giant community of strangers from different cultures, different pasts, and different futures.

Most people visit Chicago with certain preconceived ideas and certain goals for their visits. Hopefully the preconceived ideas will all be challenged and the plans that you have made are flexible. There is so much to do and see that you could go one block each way from your hotel and probably notice something new each single time you went by. My point in this is that you need to leave time to experience the wonderful things you won't discover in the guidebooks. There is only so much of this city that anyone person could possibly find to write about.

Imagine that there are Chicagoans that could eat in a different restaurant each day without eating in the same one twice in a year. I find it hard to believe that a guidebook is going to be able to hold everything you might find interesting in this city and if you spend your entire visit with your head in the book you might miss something truly worthwhile.