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Published: November 7th 2007
Hi everyone. Once again, apologies for this one taking a while to be put up online. We are infact home now, but we ran out of time to put up this blog and the LA one while we were in the States.
My impressions of Illinois was once again, completely different to any of the other places we had vistied so far. Chicago is huge, I have never seen buildings so tall (more about Chicago later). We had a three hour drive from Ohare airport to Goodfield where we stayed with Sandy and Denny (Jahan's host parents from when he lived there in 1999). Goodfield is a small town with a diner, a gas station and a bank. It is a farming community, where the farmers grown corn and soy beans. When we got there however, most of the crops had already been harvested.
Sandy and Denny live down a long drive in a forest like area, with lots of wildlife, including squirrels, deer, rabbits, etc. In a really lovely house and a beautiful setting. We spent some time getting to know (and re-getting to know for Jahan) their 3 sons, daughter in laws and grandchildren.
On the
first morning we visited the diner (called Busy Corner, and it really lives up to it's name) for breakfast. I have never seen so many varieties of pie in my entire life.. unfortunately I didn't get to try any, maybe next time. We spent the rest of the day in Bloomington, a town 20 miles away, shopping for the camera I had been looking for. I found it, batered down the price and bought it, saving about NZ$450!! I helped Sandy making M & M cheescake in the afternoon. I had my first encounter with an ice hockey game and a close encounter with that. We had good seats (so i'm told) which were right beside the rink...and many players were smeared across the glass panels in front of me. But it was good fun.
The next day we had the 'wiener roast' basically we lit a fire and cooked sausages over it. There were about 50 people there to see Jahan and I, made up of Jahans old friends and Sandy and Denny's family. It was a really good night getting to know everyone and we ended the night with a hay rack ride. (see photos and video)
Everyone getting of the Hay Rack
W found our selves in a tight corner..not quite big enough to turn around, so we all go off and had to turn the cart around.We all ride on hay bails which are on top of a flat deck wagon, towed by Denny's pickup truck. He took us through the town and through paddocks, we even went through a ditch and at one stage we all had to 'bail' off because the truck couldn't turn around with the wagon attached!
The next day we went for a trip to St Louis. St Louis is actually in the state of Missouri and was originally known as the gateway to the West. The City has the Arch which represents the gateway. It is really an incredible structure and we had the chance to travel in a pod like elevator car up to the very top. Each car fits 5 people sitting in a very tight enclosed bubble. The car travels up like an elevator but because the arch is curved it travels not only vertically but also horizontally at times. The view from the top was really neat, it's quite a large city and is bordered by the Mississippi River. We went to the Hard Rock cafe for lunch and had a look around the old railway station that had been converted into a shopping mall.
We then went to the Budweiser beer factory for a tour. Jahan and I couldn't believe that they give the 1 hour tours for free and give you two free glasses of beer at the end!
The following day we went back to school, except this time, we were the teachers! We went to Eureka High School, which is where Jahan went when he lived there. Two of the teachers had us take their classes (five in total over the day). The classes were first and second year students studying global issues and geography, so we taught them all about New Zealand. There were about three people out off everyone who actually knew where NZ was and the most popular questions were: "Do you have McDonalds" "Do you have the Internet" "which side of the road do you drive on" and "how much do you pay for gas" They were a little surprised to find out that we pay about twice as much for gas petrol as they do, but some were more surprised that we have the internet and McDonalds.
On the day of Halloween (our last day with Sandy and Denny) we drove back to
Chicago. As I mentioned earlier, the skyline is incredible. We went up the Sears Tower, which is the second tallest building in the world at 110 stories high. The view was incredible, even with the low lying cloud. After that, we went to the shopping district for a look at the designer stores. Unfortunately our budget didn't quite stretch to the $80 t-shirts, let alone the shirts and dresses! But it was interesting to do a bit of window shopping none the less. We ended our Illinois experience with a trip to Bub Gump's Shrimp Restaurant. The restaurant is moddelled on the Forest Gump movie and serves every type of shrimp you can imagine. Each table has a number plate as a sign, which says "Run Forest, Run" and one underneath saying "Stop Forest, Stop" when you want some help from your waiter, eg. another drink, you flip the sign to "Stop Forest, Stop" and the waiter will stop and ask you how they can help. If the sign says run, they won't bother you. It's quite a neat way to do it I thought. They also sell recipe books and T-shirts, amongst various other merchandise. Jahan found a T-shirt
he liked (I think that brought his T-shirt total to around 11...I haven't counted mine)
We continued on to the airport, to find our flight had been cancelled, but they had rebooked us on another flight, which went via Denver to LA and we only lost about an hour by the time we got there.
LA adventures (and many more t-shirts) to come... watch this space 😊
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Tigerzanne
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Jahanie's old home town!
Hi guys! Glad to see the rest of the blog coming together! Yes,the beauty of travelling around huge countries is that each place is just like another country within the one you are in!! That is so cool!! I crack up when Sth. Islanders don't like the difference between them and Auckland,say! The difference is so practically non-excisting,the scenery is about all that changes! Lizzie!what did you thing of Jahanie's little old life style he had for a year? I would say miles apart from his up-bringing! Other than the closes family thing of coarse!!But really cool. He was so lucky to get such a lovely family.What I want to know though is did he fit straight back in again? And I figure from your comments,you are rather pleased he no longer plays ice hockey! As a mum back here I had to block it all out,they also did it on the frozen over lakes! Ma Su.xx