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Chicago, Illinois

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B&B, Hotels and Hostels in Chicago, Illinois

 

  
 

 

  

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Chicago has the lot: itinerant artists babbling Beat, Polish aunties stuffing sausage, African-American mothers organising the block, blue-collar guys bad-mouthing the Bears, a crooner singing the blues on the South Side. It's a city that wears its American heart proudly on its sleeve. This diverse mix has built a city with an unrivalled tradition of jazz and blues, an astonishing architecture, an appetite for hearty food, award-winning newspapers, universities full of Nobel laureates and some of the most die-hard sports fans you'll ever meet.

Chicago is a well-known theater capital and the birthplace of improvisational comedy, where it remains extremely popular. The city is home to The Second City and I.O., two of the best-known comedy troupes in the world. It is also home to one of the longest running plays in the country the Neo-Futurarium's "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" an ensemble of 30 plays in 60 minutes. Many world-famous actors and comedians are Chicagoans or came to study in the area, particularly at Northwestern University in Evanston. The form itself was invented at the University of Chicago in the 1960s by an undergraduate performance group called the Compass Players, whose members went on to found Second City. (In honor of this, Second City returns to the school on major anniversaries to perform free shows.)

 		  
     
  Chicago has made many significant pop-cultural contributions. In the field of music, Chicago is well-known for its Chicago blues, Chicago soul, Jazz, and Gospel. It is known as the birthplace of the House style of music, whose history is related to the development and fostering of the techno electronic style of music in nearby Michigan. The Hip-Hop scene in Chicago is also very influential, with major artists including Kanye West, Twista, R. Kelly, and Common.

The hot Chicago summer is the peak of the festival season, with major events taking place in the parks and neighbourhoods every weekend. September is blessed with reliably warm days and is probably the most pleasant month of the year, weather wise, but there's less going on during this period. January to March is when Chicago is least busy and hotels and airfares are usually at their cheapest; however, temperatures and brisk winds will guarantee that you'll spend most of this period indoors.

Chicago, Illinois is a popular gay destination and it features a prominent gay infrastructure often gay-owned and/or managed. A list of other popular gay and lesbian destinations world round has been included here