Blogs from Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America - page 75

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North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago November 29th 2007

Hey guys apologies for the delay but I've been flat out. At Penn State there is a week's break for Thanksgiving, where all the students go home to their families and eat, drink and sleep way too much. They kick you out of the dorms so us international students took the opportunity to take a sightseeing trip. There were about five of the PSU international kids in Chicago. Most of us stayed at Hostellers International in the Loop in downtown Chicago. It's a good hostel, very reasonably priced and an excellent location. The Greyhound (I hate Greyhound possibly slightly more even than Walmart) bus trip took just under 20 hours (expected time was 17:30) with several layovers and delays and frustrating overbookings and rescheduling. The trip was overnight so it at least saved us a night's ... read more
Cloud Gate
Skating at Millenium Park
Deep Dish Pizza

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago November 10th 2007

Whilst still in Chicago Chelle managed to see the coolest exhibition. Red Bull had staged a competition for people to create art out of used Red Bull cans. It was really neat (and very sustainable :) First place was won by the dragon sculpture - which obviously appealed to Chelle as they are her favourite animals. The exhibition was close to Navy Pier, so after visiting that Chelle made her way down to the Pier to have a look around. This is basically one of those really long piers that sticks out into the lake that used to be used as a ship yard and that was then remade into a tourist attraction with fun rides and show centers etc. It was quite a fun place to look at, although there wasn't anything going on as ... read more
The Red Bull Art
Snow boarder
Quilt

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago November 9th 2007

Chelle wagged from her conference today and took the day off to have a good look at Chicago. Given that she has been waking up at 3:30am most morning (jet lag is a nightmare) she was up and about early in the morning. The weather here is freezing! So walking all around the city was a little brisk. First stop in the morning was a little visit to the Field Musuem to take a look at the Map exhibition. As Chelle loves maps she was right in her element. They even had a book of maps by Piri Reis, a very famous map maker from Turkey. The map book was amazing with gold leaf illustrations! Very beautiful. On the way down to the Field Museum Chelle walked through Grant Park and played with all the art ... read more
The bean
Me in the bean
Grant Park

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago November 8th 2007

Day 2 of the Greenbuild conference saw Chelle wag the luncheon that was put on to run away and visit the Sears Tower instead. The Greenbuild conference over here has been terribly badly organised. There are queues for everything, everywhere and it just isn't worth it. The queue to get into the lunch was just so long that it wasn't even worth thinking about to get lunch there. However the visit to Sears tower was quite successful. The view was really quite cool. Although one does have to say that the Chicago skyline isn't the coolest view in the world. While Chelle was up at the top of the Sears tower she got asked by someone who recognised the free bag that they gave out at the conference how she was enjoying the conference. It turned ... read more
View from Sears Tower
More Views
Lake Michigan views

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago November 7th 2007

The Green Build conference started on November 7th. Bill Clinton gave the opening address at the Greenbuild conference today. it was quite interesting although he didn't really say anything new and exciting. For some reason the Americas are rather fixated on Carbon. Everything they talk about is to do with carbon emissions and global warming. For a country that didn't sign Kyoto that are rather interested in it now. Actually to the detriment of other matters, which is more than a little scary. In true American form they have fixated only on one part of the problem and are ignoring everything else. The exhibition is pretty interesting. It is amazing to have an entire hall filled with sustainable products and companies. Makes a pleasant change. The conference itself hasn't been the most fascinating thing in the ... read more
The Lend Lease Stand
The Conference
The Chicago Firehouse

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago November 4th 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, ... read more
The Hay Rack ride
Everyone getting of the Hay Rack
Jahan and Dave pushing the cart

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago November 4th 2007

Well, the long anticipated trip to Chicago has happened. Chelle was most excited as the first part of the trip involved a long trip in business class on a lovely Emirates plane. Business class was super on the plane. They have the full lie-down beds. And as much champange as you can handle. However I must say that the food was rather average. I took full advantage of the movie selection watching Pirates of the Carribbean 3 (really good), Shrek 3 (OK), High Society (old movie with Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby), and The Princess Diaries (old but ok). The second half of the trip, from New York to Chicago, sucked! My cheap as company only puts you in business class for flights over 5 hours. So even if you have already been travelling for ... read more
Celebration drink for passing the exam
Chicago Skyline
Nightime Sky view

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago October 31st 2007

so if you're a subscriber, you may have gotten a bunch of emails. oops.... read more

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago October 30th 2007

here i am... still in the midwest. i've gotten to see a lot of my cousins the past couple days. that means lots of hugs and laughing. i love it. hopefully i'll get some pictures up soon. i will before i go to jamaica. remember. that's on november first. today i'm having lunch with a friend from jamaica. she's american and a lot older than me, she's from here, the president of their board of directors...it's going to be really good, but also, it's going to be kind of heavy as we talk about some of the realities of full-time life in jamaica. she's only stayed there for 3 months at a time, and not always just at the children's home. i have to face that there will be times when i am lonely...i'm not ... read more

North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago October 26th 2007

It was hot that Friday afternoon in April when I walked East on Kinzie. The dry spring heat and cloudless sky made me sweat, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. On the first time, I did not want to show up sweaty, or worse, with a trace of B.O. As if that was my primary concern. You never know what you're getting yourself into the first time and I was full of anxiety, nerves, questioning my judgment, should I have taken the afternoon off from work, and no wonder my pecker was hiding in my pants practically in hibernation. We conferred a few days before and she told me there would be 'surprises', so what was that supposed to mean? Surprises? What am I getting into this time? Does she want to ... read more




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