The inscription on the statue's base reads “Free society is not, and shall not be, a failure,” which are words direct from the then-Mr. President, spoken in Chicago on Dec. 10, 1856. I'll bet he couldn't have foreseen what would become Lincoln Square 148 years after that statement, which is a mishmash of punk families and other interesting people. I'm serious about the punk family – I've seen punks, and punk couples, but this was an entire punk family, with purple hair and tattoos up and down the forearms for him, spiky platinum hair and a septum piercing for her, and wallet chains and Vans for the boys and a minivan. The melding of demographics was just too good to miss. The area also boasts a guy who literally pulls off on the side of Lawrence Avenue, not putting his car in the most secure of locations, to ask if the sixosix photographer and I need our pictures taken together, because, “The scenery looks better when you're in the picture together,” and was visibly downcast when we informed him this was for a magazine and not for a lovers' photo album. I felt as if I should have run after him and told him that was a joke, and of course we'd love our picture taken together.

It was all alien behavior. But under the watchful eyes of Abe, it seemed almost right.

04. Shopping, or, how much is that wooden pig in the window?: 8.1
I'm a sucker for things that sound much nicer than they actually are. Fiji water, for example. It's great to spend $2.50 for ten ounces of the most pure, amazingly refreshing water on the planet. Never mind that at that price, I'm spending $32 a gallon, because it's nice and looks good and I'm cool for using it.

Apothecaries are the same way. They look hip and they sound hip, but once you get in, they're a bust: You just walked into a mom-and-pop Walgreens that sells books like The ABCs of Asthma, Allergies and Lupus , and it's nowhere near as fulfilling as that Fiji water. This is not to say the store itself isn't good, just that it didn't reach my expectations of some medieval alchemy lab where the search for the Philosopher's Stone continues, undaunted by these modern developments of “chemistry” and “physics.”

The store next door, however, was the jackpot. I'm in a unique position of knowing a goodly amount about German cuisine – a close friend lived overseas for a few years, and brought back some of the odder things – so when I saw what looked like tubes of toothpaste in the window of a food store, I knew what they contained. My photographer, however, was still confused.

Her: “Umm … why are they selling toothpaste next to pretzels?”
Me: “That's not toothpaste. That's mustard in tubes.”
Her: (confusion continuing, perhaps even increasing) “Oh … OK. But that doesn't make sense.”

I would tend to agree with her, considering the main item on display was a large wooden pig, made to look as if it had just been roasted on the spit. That's not an activity in which I see a lot of urbanites participating, so I'll just leave that one alone and chalk it up to another way of continuing the area's ambience. Still seems a strange way to represent German foods, though, with a carving of a dead pig. They get the points anyway.

05. An oasis in the wilderness, or, anachronistic symbols of Americanism: 9.0
The entire stretch of Lincoln Avenue isn't 100 percent owned and influenced by the Germans. There were still a goodly number of Spanish-speaking establishments, but the most amazing symbol of good-old Americanism was the 1955 Cadillac Eldorado parked in one of the metered spaces, right in front of a martial arts dojo. We're talking tail fins and everything. This was legit.

It reminded me of an era when the skies were blue, the gas was cheap and America ruled the world with its unique brand of stubbornness and swell living. Then I remembered I wasn't alive at the time, and the car was just interesting to me as some out-of-place anachronism that didn't fit with the entire feeling of civility openness that emanates from the whole Lincoln Square stretch. It was too big for the spot, poking out into the street so that its modern companion, the Sport-Utility, could barely squeeze by without running up on the sidewalk and frightening small children.

But if I had the keys to that Eldorado, man, that would be a party. It was a nice way to ease myself back into the city living and get out of the fun play-land that is Lincoln Square .

Ending
The Lincoln Square area is its own animal, an interesting respite from the bustle of Chicago . The entire area – most of all the cobblestone square – felt more like a European town than one of the largest cities in the United States. As I walked north across Lawrence , I saw a man with pigeons walking all over him and knew the respite was too good to last. I was back to reality.

Final score: 9.6