Great place for a refresher course in the periodic table...

When we were in San Francisco earlier this year, I posted a picture that Rick took of me when I was eating ice cream in Ghirardelli. So here's a picture that my dad took of me eating ice cream in Ghirardelli in Chicago:

I wonder how many pictures I can collect of myself eating ice cream at Ghirardelli? I hope that question has an ever-changing answer...

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry this afternoon, mainly because I'd heard it had a big Christmas tree display and I wanted to see it. But the rest of the museum turned out to be really cool and interesting, too. The Christmas trees are kind of in the lobby of the museum, and they've been decorated by all kinds of different cultural groups in the city. So each tree has a different "theme" that represents a different country. A few of my favorites:

Lebanon

Germany

Scotland (I liked this one because they used lots of purple... :))

Belize

India

After the trees, we wandered around all the other displays and exhibits in the museum. They had everything from chemistry experiments to displays of nineteenth century clothing to an entire Boeing 727 hanging from the ceiling. But we saved the best for last -- although not necessarily on purpose. We were actually on our way out of the museum when Rick saw a sign for a German U-boat exhibit, and we decided to check it out. We weren't sure if it was just some kind of replica of a submarine, or just pictures, or what. But it turned out to be an entire, authentic submarine. In 1954, the museum was able to procure U-505 -- a German submarine that was captured by Americans in WWII. It's the only German submarine in the U.S. today. Unfortunately, they weren't letting anyone inside the sub while we were there -- we got to the exhibit just as the museum was about to close. But we walked around the outside of it (you could still see bullet holes from where planes shot at it before it was captured), and walked through the displays around the sub.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea... it was actually bigger than we all expected, because we've all heard how small U-boats were. I guess they were just "small" relatively speaking...

Anyway, I'm very sleepy right now, so I'd better post this and go to bed before I fall asleep here at the computer... zzzzzzzzzz...