Having survived Vegas, we decided to take the plane to America’s Windy City, Chicago. Fares for the train were ridiculously expensive and the journey time was over 35 hours. Compare this with a $80, 3.5 hour flight and it didn’t take us long to come to a conclusion. Although A isn’t a great flyer, she didn’t have any inflight breakdowns or drunken escapades a la Bridesmaids. The worst disaster was her spilling her beer over the poor man next to us. Touching down at O’Hare airport at around 1am in the morning, we had booked a hotel reportedly close to the airport – O’Hare’s Travelodge. We don’t tarnish a company’s reputation lightly, but our experience there has been the worst either of us have ever encountered at home or abroad. The advertised shuttle bus from the airport to the lodge didn’t turn up; S tried calling 3 times to no response resulting in us having to pay $35 for a taxi to take us there. On arrival at around 2.30am, we discovered our reservation wasn’t on the system. Luckily we had our confirmation and they had a room. It hadn’t been cleaned properly (a beer bottle lid was found under the bed) and the room felt dirty. So, if anyone is thinking of staying there, don’t. Book the Hilton right opposite the airport. We coulda stayed there for the same price we eventually ended up paying for the Travelodge (taxi fare plus hotel). The staff seemed to have no idea about running a hotel and our request for a shuttle to the airport in the morning took almost an hour to come collect us. We hope Cecil Joseph, the manager of the Travelodge, reads this blog. S is going to refer him to it in an angry email.
Anyway! Not to be disheartened, we looked forward to what Chicago had to offer and made our way to our hostel for the three days – Getaway Chicago. It has genuinely been one of the nicest places we’ve stayed! So thanks to SB’s cousin for the tip.
S has been to Chicago before, but when it was a little colder and wetter so he was looking forward to sampling Chicago in summer. And boy was it hot. It was around 38 degrees celsius our first day. The temperatures cooled a little the subsequent days but it was still warm.
After checking into our hostel, we decided to explore the neighbourhood. We were based in Lincoln Park, reportedly one of the more expensive areas of Chicago. The architecture was impressive and the neighbourhood had quite a Victorian feel to it. We decided to take advantage of the hot weather and explore the city’s waterfront and Lake Michigan area. It was beautiful. We waded into the water and just absorbed our surroundings. Sometimes, when you’re only in a place for a couple of days, you take pictures without really appreciating what you’re snapping. The Chicago skyline was to our right, with Navy Pier in the distance, and Lake Michigan right in front of us. We spent a good couple of hours exfoliating our feet in the sand and strolling along the shore. All in all, a wonderful day and one that definitely made up for our previous night and arrival in Chicago.
Day 2 was our main tourist day. We headed downtown to see one of Chicago’s famous installations – the Cloud AKA The Bean. It is truly a fun and quirky piece of art.
We also marvelled at Chicago’s impressive architecture that surrounded us – skyscrapers and more European medieval style buildings alike. Chicago really has character and A often expressed her huge love for the city.
A bit of shopping and a trip to Navy Pier was next on the agenda. We were lucky to have gotten this far; A had an unfortunate incident of shoving a stick she found down what we thought was an empty drain when in fact it was an inhabited wasps nest. Cue a hilarious sprint and the best face S has ever seen A make as a swarm of angry wasps began to emerge from the drain. Don’t worry. They didn’t get us!
Our shopping trip was highlighted by A getting extremely excited about a shop named after us (although a different spelling of A’s name, which didn’t detract from the amusement!) They even had a special entrance just for us. As demonstrated by the following picture:
Getting over our new found celebrity in the city, Navy Pier had a great buzz and the music really brought the summer day alive. We both felt like breaking into a dance right there and then but we didn’t want to show up the pier performers. We’re selfless like that. Filling our stomachs with wings and quesadillas, we enjoyed the atmosphere of the pier for a while before taking a leisurely stroll back to the hostel to be greeted by an impressive thunderstorm. It was so loud that it set off 3 or 4 car alarms at 1am. We had never experienced anything like it.
Next day, we had to check out at 11am. The hostel had luggage storage so we didn’t have to lug our backpacks around with us. We decided to go for some cultural exploration and headed towards the Chicago Musuem. Unfortunately it was a tad expensive so we didn’t go in but we had a look around the neighbourhood and took some pics next to a Lincoln memorial, until our grumbling stomachs announced lunchtime. Chicago is famous for its deep pan pizzas so of course we had to have one – S knew of the famous Ginos that has been feaured on the show Man vs Food and had been there before so off we headed, salivating at the thought of pizzas larger than our faces combined. Ordering a medium 6 slice half and half we only managed two slices each, experiencing the kind of feeling that you wouldn’t feel hungry again for days.
We took a leisurely walk back to the hostel and chilled before our night time greyhound coach to Toronto. A little apprehensive about the greyhound experience (stories of beheadings and downright bizarre behaviour abound on the internet – the beheading one is true! Google it – and we also had a stop off and bus transfer in Detroit. To be honest, we lived it up in South LA for two nights and were pretty literate in ‘da hood’ so Detroit would be a walk in the park. Turns out, our journey from Chicago via Detroit to Toronto was perfectly normal and we both still have our heads. Passing the Canadian border was a breeze and we’ve now spent the past 6 days in Canada and 2 days back in the US. We promise to blog about them all soon. We’re a tad behind. It’s just what happens when you’re having fun!
We’d like to leave you with one final sentiment S snapped whilst strolling through Chicago.
Much love,
S&A
la-ny2012 