Chicago Part One

Early Friday morning, Frank and I headed to Chicago to see a soccer match between Team USA and Germany. A soccer friendly. The game wasn't until Saturday, so after checking into our hotel and grabbing some lunch at Whole Foods, we took an Uber to the Griffen Museum of Science & Industry. I booked tickets the night before to ensure that we would be able to see the U-Boat 505 that was captured towards the end of WWII near North Africa. As a scuba diver and with a great-uncle who died while serving aboard a U-boat, Frank and I have been curious about them. The men captured were held in a prisoner camp in North Carolina and were returned home in 1947. Some stories report that U-boats made it into the Hudson River, and others say that seamen walked among the citizens of the U.S. without even being detected. One thing we do know is that 70 percent of those who served on these vessels never returned home. Those on the ship were made of something different, as they were confined to very small spaces; they were unable to shower during their time on the boats, they slept in shifts and at times had to be submerged for extremely long periods of time which meant very little oxygen and they had to be absolutely quiet in order not to give off their location as noice travels far under water. While in the museum, we also saw a movie on the effect of global climate change, an exhibit on steel, and saw artifacts from space missions. Then we grabbed some dinner and water and called it an early night as we had gotten up at 5:00 a.m. that morning.