I love the energy of big cities. Sometimes there’s so much it spills over into the early hours of the morning. On a trip to Chicago last weekend we saw Hopper‘s evocative depiction of that straggling energy – when you just don’t want to follow everyone else home to call it a night – in his famous Nighthawks.

I know the feeling, it reminds me of visits to Don Quixote. Not the Don Quixote – Cafe Don Quixote on the Kingsway in London.

Sometimes the 4am conversation at Cafe Don Quixote was reminiscent of the Spanish Knight; other times it was as lonely as Hopper’s nocturnal scene. But there was always people-watching those other stragglers waiting at the bus stop opposite the cafe, and the warm tea always provided just enough energy to survive the night bus home.

[Nighthawks photo by Mollie E Tubbs]