Finally, Chicago: At the end of the day

It was a varied crowd at dinner tonight.

A couple of young women were having drinks at the table next to ours, and older men in suits showed up for dinner.

At one table were a couple guys in Bears jerseys, while a few Seahawks fans were a couple tables away. (The Bears and Seahawks play tonight.)

Meanwhile, we sat back and watched the world go by — commuters and tourists alike.

A cool touch at the restaurant, Quartino, is that the wait staff all wears Italian soccer jerseys.

I’d like to see this more often, but I’m not sure how well it would fly where I live when employees were told to wear jerseys other than the Red Sox or Patriots. (According to our waiter, the jerseys at Quartino are from a selection that the boss buys on eBay.)

My wife and I always hit museums on our trips, and we try to choose days when the weather is cold or rainy.

Today, however, we decided on the Art Institute of Chicago in part to do something while staying out of the heat.

The forecasts we saw for Chicago this week indicated it would be pleasant, but it has actually been more than pleasant, with temperatures today in the mid-80s.

I’m not complaining — I would never complain about warm weather — but a lot of walking in that kind of heat might be a bit much.

Even after years of going to art museums, I don’t have any great insights on art, other than that Impressionism is both the best and last good art period and that modern art is crap.

And most art labels are written way over the heads of average people.

I’m not one of those people who linger in front of a piece of art, studying every nuance. I’m more of a “That picture looks nice,” look at it and move on.

Abraham Lincoln is on a statue in Grant Park.

Barack Obama gave his 2008 victory speech there in front of an estimated crowd of about 240,000 people.

Today, though, it was pretty much just us and Honest Abe.

Somehow, they managed to build downtown Chicago so the buildings not only provide a backdrop to everything, they look amazing in the process.

We stopped to take a break along Lake Michigan, the Navy Pier in the distance off to our left, the rest of the city behind us.

A couple geese swam nearby, one getting almost close enough to touch, looking completely unbothered.

A seagull sat on the seawall next to my wife, flew away, then came back. Hopefully it wasn’t looking for food; we didn’t have any.

We sat there for a while, just relaxing, until my wife said we should probably be heading back to the hotel.

After all, we were going to have to get ready for dinner.

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