Chicago!

Praise God for a successful journey. I got about an hour of sleep total between Minneapolis and Chicago- not cool- and got there at about 5:55 AM. I got to the general neighborhood of the French Consulate within half an hour but had difficulty finding the correct building. This was partly because at that hour of the morning I felt conspicuous and I was doing my best to not look like an out-of-towner. This required walking fast, not stopping to look at signs, and acting like I knew what I was doing, none of which is any good for getting directions.
I needed a bathroom and somewhere to sit down, so I headed over to Millennium Park. Once I got a general feel for the lay of the land and put to rest my fear that the park would be swarming with homeless people, I ate a couple of granola bars, sat by the lake for a while, and then found a bench and did my Bible study. I wandered around the park some more, reading another book I had brought and taking in some of the touristy stuff there (like the giant "bean"). It was very relaxing time. 3 1/2 hours of it.
I got back to the French consulate with very little fanfare and, after one wrong turn, found the VISA place. I had been warned that I my appointment could be as much as an hour or two late. It was only about 5 minutes behind schedule, and the whole "interview," if it could be called that, was conducted through a bullet-proof teller desk in about 5 minutes.
So, now all we can do is wait and pray. They say I should get my VISA in the mail in about 2 weeks.
After that was done, I wandered back to the park and decided to walk along the pier. There are a TON of sailboats on the lake right there. I walked for probably 2 or 3 miles along the pier, traveling on foot to all of the places you would normally drive to. So now I can say that I have seen (from the outside) Soldier Field, the observatory, the aquarium, and the museum. I used the field glass by the observatory to watch a man raise the sails on his boat. After that I wandered past a huge fountain and through a beautiful flower garden, ending up back in the HUGE concert lawn on the north end of Millennium Park. I listened to some traditional Hispanic music, wandered past the rather creepy LED faces that spew water onto mimes and small children, and then meandered back to the bus (with a quick stop at Subway).
I sat with a group of girls on the bus back to Minneapolis and quickly found out that the three of them were all graduates from a school near my alma matter who decided to have a weekend reunion of sorts. So the four of us had a delightful trip back to the cities.