Tag: Places

Chi-Town

Rory warns her mother not to refer to Chicago as “Chi-Town” when she meets her new boyfriend Dean, who is from Chicago.

The term Chi-Town originated as trucker’s slang to refer to Chicago via citizens’ band radio; it obviously takes the first three letters of Chicago and adds Town to it. The slang term spread more widely than CB radio usage after it featured in the 1975 novelty song Convoy by C.W. McCall, from the album Black Bear Road. The song went to #1 in the national charts, as well as #1 in the country charts, and inspired the 1978 film Convoy.

The Two Koreas

LORELAI: Where does your mother think you are?
LANE: Oh, on a park bench contemplating the reunification of the two Koreas.

The country of Korea, which emerged in the 7th century, was annexed by Japan in 1910. At the end of World War II, after the surrender of the Japanese, it was divided into North and South Korea in 1945, with the North under Soviet control and the South under US occupation.

Tensions between the North and South led to the Korean War in 1950, ending in a stalemate in 1953 without a peace treaty. Each country contends that it is the sole legitimate government of Korea, and refuse to recognise the other. To date, there seems little chance of them reunifying.

Condo

MRS. SHALES: They just told me they’re going to share a condo in Tuscon. Arizona! That’s hundreds of miles away!

In the US and many parts of Canada, condo is short for condominium, real estate in which residential units are separately owned, but surrounded by areas which are jointly owned, such as hallways, laundry rooms, swimming pools, and gardens. In other countries this may be known as strata title or commonhold.

It doesn’t seem like a good idea for the quarrelling twins to share a unit together with their new husbands, but Mrs. Shales is just happy they’re a long way from her.

The twins moving away from their mother is an object lesson to Lorelai – if she keeps fighting with Rory, she may end up losing her daughter. Worse, it may come as a relief to her.

Luxembourg Gardens

MICHEL: I was attacked by a band of swans in the Luxembourg Gardens when I was a boy.

Le Jardin du Luxembourg, called the Luxembourg Garden in English, is a formal garden in Paris outside the Luxembourg Palace. The garden is owned by the French Senate.

Although there is a large pool in the Garden, it doesn’t have a “band of swans”; there is a fountain which depicts Leda and the Swan instead. This calls into question Michel’s story, and the fact that he gets the name of the Garden wrong makes one wonder if he grew up in Paris at all.

Fez

RORY: I want to go to Fez.

Fez is the second-largest city in Morocco, and is known as the Mecca of the West and the Athens of Africa. Tourists tend to be drawn to it because of its traditional architecture and medieval medina, giving it an old-world atmosphere.

Chicago

DEAN: My family just moved here from Chicago.
RORY: Chicago. Windy. Oprah.

Chicago is a city in the Midwestern state of Illinois on the shores of Lake Michigan; it is the third-largest city in the United States. It has a massive suburban sprawl, so that Dean could be from a town quite a distance from the city itself, and still claim to be from Chicago. This doesn’t seem unlikely.

Reduced to a babbling state by Dean’s attention, Rory blurts out the only two things she knows about Chicago.

One is that its moniker is The Windy City, even though meteorologists will tell you it’s no windier than any other city in the US. Some say the wind is that which comes off the lake, others that the nickname was an insult from rival cities to mean that citizens of Chicago were full of hot air.

The other fact Rory knows about Chicago is that it’s where The Oprah Winfrey Show is broadcast from. Celebrity talk show host Oprah Winfrey’s television show went from 1986 to 2011, and was the highest-rated daytime TV show in the United States, if not the world.

Hartford

JOEY: Yeah, I’ve never been here before. Just, uh, passing through on my way to Hartford.

Hartford is the capital of Connecticut, with a population of around 125 000, making it the third largest city in the state. Founded in 1635, it is one of the oldest cities in the United States, and for many years in its history was one of the wealthiest. These days it is actually one of America’s poorest cities, so its glory days are behind it.

In the show, Hartford was the home of Richard and Emily Gilmore, and the birthplace of both Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. Lorelai attended college part-time in Hartford, while Rory went to private school there. It is one of the most important locations in Gilmore Girls outside Stars Hollow.