Blogs from North America - page 7755

Chicago We finally arrived in Chicago despite the horrendous traffic(Im glad we arent driving in New York!)We said goodbye to the monte at the airport and hopped on the subway to our next hostel, in the Lincoln Park area of the city. We were amazed at how clean Chicago was compared to New York. The Navy pier was our first tourist spot, the air show was on last weekend so we watched them practising for it over lake Michigan. The pier was full of restaurants , boat moorings and kids things. A lot better than the piers back home!Sadly while we were there I found out my auntie mavis died, it was such a shock that I spent ages in a daze, its times like this that you want to be back home more than ever. ... read more

Hello from Chicago! I am currently at orientation in Chicago with the other international Young Adult Volunteers (of the PC (USA) church) and the Young Adult s in Global Mission (of the Lutheran church). The week has been needed since the time at home right before leaving was understandibly very hectic. I have been amazed how I've handled this whole process (or rather not thought about it until now), starting from back in April when I was selected to go to the Philippines as an Ecumenical Intern for the United Church of Christ of the Philippines as a Young Adult Volunteer. I didn't take in the immensity of the coming year, instead I was mostly relieved to find that I finally had an answer to the often asked, “Do you have plans after graduation?” This past ... read more

Life is good. Ticking along. In the interests of maintaining a blog, I will just put a few quick words up here without boring you too much about the mundane details. We have not really done too much tourist stuff, just a lot of local living stuff, like dinners, bbq’s and parties with friends. Good climbing at the local crag that is the Chief, runs, walks, bike rides… A couple of friends from Canberra are around at the moment (Damo and Bertram), so that has been fun and kinda weird. We all met up at a pub in town last night, and wondered who else we could get over here from the Nation’s heartland. If Nick was still here, we’d have a mini-thriving Canberra community! Anyone tempted? Have we told you how good the rock over ... read more

After stopping in Wisconsin to visit friends and play a few games of pool, we headed west toward Minnesota. Of course, on our way across Wisconsin we did stop to pickup some cheese (yum!). Our first stop in Minnesota was Minneapolis, where we swung by Mall of America just to check it out. The list of shops in the directory was dumbfounding, so we started walking around. In the center of the 100-acre mall is a mini amusement park, with roller coasters, rides, carnival games and ridiculous prizes. Looks like fun, but as we just spent a couple of days at Cedar Point, we moved on. We walked a full circle around the outside of this amusement area, which sounds simple but it was quite a hike! this outer area is where all the shops are. ... read more

070823 Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park, Washington After leaving Seattle I drove about 45 minutes south to Sumner Washington where my friend and co-worker Bryan grew up. I crashed at his dad’s apartment which was empty at the moment. While there I waterproofed my tent because it wasn’t very waterproof when it rained in Yellowstone. We pretty much relaxed all day, watched movies, did some laundry (since both of us are nomads we wash laundry when we can), and did general upkeep on our gear, like waterproofing, sharpening knives, whatever. I was thinking about going to Mt Rainer for a day then going to Olympic National Park for a day. Bryan suggested I use both days for Olympic National Park and stressed how cool the Hoh Rainforest on the west side of the park was. I ... read more