Blogs from Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America - page 94

Short entry for a short journey. First day of travel went easy enough. It's only a 5ish hour drive. Left Michigan around 1ish, which meant that my packing procrastination had plenty of time to not mess things up! Even the traffic on the cursed Dan Ryan wasn't so bad. It was lovely to hang out w/ some friends in Chi-town, for what little time I had to spend there. My awesome host, Karin, and I went to a Fillipino market to get some awesome treats. Then we headed to T's for dinner. Got to talk w/ Jo, who I hadn't seen since August, and other peeps I met at New Years. Also met a friend of Karin's who is also moving to MN. Yay for networking. And, what might be the best part, I didn't even ... read more

I arrived in Chicago after four fun filled days in NYC, was a rather painful flight as we were delayed for 2 hours sitting on the runway. The flight was short, only and hour and a half, and I slept most of it as I was really tired. I arriaved late, and didnt see much on my way to Highland Park ... read more

We got to Chicago after a non-eventful train journey (thank God). We arrived at the hostel, a bit out of town but there's 24 hour metro so was great, and promptly got chucked out! Only for a couple of hours though, lock out hostels suck, but they do make you get out of bed even with the most serverest hangover (poor Trev!). We went into the city the next day, heading for the Library for free internet. Chicago is the city in the States we,ve been to so far that looks and feels like home. The architecture is very european and feels like theres a lot of history around. The Library building was beautiful itself, it was a shame that when we used the computers we all slowly noticed that over half of the people there ... read more

Chicaaaagggoooo… Chicago was a long 12 hours from Toronto on the bus via Detroit ( I didn’t see eminem) and involved another delightful stop at customs, this time it was the Americans asking the questions. It took Fran ages to get through, they read loads of her journal, probably thought she looked dodgy..! Only joking. Anyway, arrived in Chicago late as usual but got checked in ok. Very expensive for a hostel, but we both had nice rooms, very spacious with an attached bathroom-which is handy for midnight loo runs! First thing on the agenda, as always it seems with large US cities, is to go up something large and we chose the Sears Tower over the Hancock Observatory because it was taller! Fantastic views of the city and the surrounding suburbs at the top of ... read more

The trip back into America was interesting. At customs everyone on the coach has to disembark and take their luggage through. The customs officer that I went to was quite nosy! She was even reading my journal and cards from friends that I have brought with me! At least she was doing her job well, but it did mean that most of the coach, bar two people, had to wait for me. The funniest part was when she was quizzing me concerning marriage to Thommo! She wanted to know if and when we were planning to get married and would it be in the States, she said it is quite common for foreigners to do so. When we arrived at our hostel, which was quite late, we just went to bed. Getting used to tip toeing ... read more