Chicago

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Following our 45 hour train marathon we headed to our motel, which was right in the centre of Chicago. It was nice to finally have some room to swing a cat after being couped up in a shoebox sized excuse for a room on the train. We went for a wander around the neighbourhood and went for a dinner at Chicago style deep dish pizza restaurant. It was the most filling pizza we've ever had, we only had a six slice medium, and still had to take two slices with us! It was so thick and had so much topping eating two slices each was a challenge!

The next day with both of us down to our last few items of clean clothing, we needed to do some washing, the nearest one was several miles away. I decided that we'd be fine to walk there, Cat wasn't convinced. We did get the bus back which I think in the heat and with a bag full of clean clothes was a wise decision! After the washing we went for a stroll around town, looking at some of the impressive skyscrapers, in the city that introduced them to the world. Lot's of the sights were familiar as we'd seen the new batman film a few days earlier. (based on Chicago) That evening we went to a really good free jazz concert in Millenium park, it was staged to celebrate the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela. It featured a jazz orchestra, a gospel choir and a very talented female vocalist with a massive voice. The park holds free concerts all year round, it must be a real plus point if you live in Chicago.

The next day we contacted one of Cats friends from Heidelberg and arranged to meet him for breakfast the following day. We then went to Navy Pier a big shopping centre/beach area on the shore of Lake Michigan and had a look round - not really that exciting. That evening we went to watch the Chicago White Sox play the Texas Rangers in a baseball match. We'd picked up the rules from cable tv, but still were not sure what to expect as we had been told that it was pretty boring to watch. It turned out to be great, the Soxs won 10-2, scoring a 4run and a 3run home run, both of which Cat predicted! The atmosphere was great, and they let off lots of fireworks after each home run. They even put on live music by each gate to entertain the crowds as we queued to get in! It was really funny seeing the stereotypical beer man, peanut man, hot dog man, candyfloss man walking through the crowd, there were so many of them!

On our last full day in Chicago we met Phil for breakfast, it was nice for Cat to catch up with him and nice for me to meet him. He teaches Russian at a local school. After breakfast, which finished about midday, we headed North to the free zoo. The zoo was really good, apart from the big cat enclosures which were a bit small and some of the cats were showing signs of distress. The leopard in particular was pacing up and down it's cage. It did have two very cheerful polar bears who were happily swimming around eating fish in their enclosure. After the zoo we played catch with our souvenir baseball - we can see now why the professionals use a glove! We didn't do much else that day apart from eat and pack ready to leave the next day.
Before we caught our train to Memphis we wandered along the famous Michigan Mile shopping street, getting an idea for what we might want to buy with our spare money when we get to New York. We left Chicago at 6pm for an overnight trip to Memphis. Overall we enjoyed our time in the windy city.

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