On Monday evening I went up Sears Tower. Obviously it was great views once I got to the top. However the bullshit before was hard to deal with. First step was a security screening where I had to remove all wallets, keys, mobile phones, etc, before passing through the gate. Then I had to buy a ticket ($12, twice as much as the art museum entry) before heading into a holding pen where we waited for about 5 minutes. Precious daylight was fading away. Then we were led into a darkened room and forced to watch a pointless tourism video complete with cheesy jazz background music. It lasted about 10 minutes. Our journey up and down in the lift was narrated by two dreadful cartoon characters on a video screen. Even up in the observatory we were not left in peace. While a two song jazz track was looped on the speakers, around the centre of the room were bland panels describing the history of Chicago. The panels were lighted so their reflections on the windows spoiled some of my photos.