The windy city

3/09/11

Clocking up the miles into Illonios, a bike tour, city lights, ascending the heights, take me out to the ball game and jazz.

Arrived in the ‘windy city’ home of the brownie, ferris wheel, cracker jacks and McDonald’s in th afternoon. After a classic ‘deep dish’ pizza – woah so much cheese we went on the famous ‘Bobby’s bike tour.’ It was 3 hours of fun, exercise and great spots. We rode to the boardwalk along the lake, through town, over the Michigan Bridge, and to the colourful water fountain. We were very vocal along the way making our sound effects and ring the bell, with me on Vernal the Chicago bike.

Afterwards we decided to go up the John  Hancock building to the Ambassador lounge on the 96^th floor – coz it was free and we could get drinks and dessert. I had a delicious chocolate mousse and drink. The view was spectacular especially out of the ladies ‘rest room’ overlooking the city. Some of the group headed home and a few of us went to check out the jazz in the home of jazz. We found an authentic bar with two bands working in tandem during the night. The others provided us with entertainment as we sat down and bopped to the jazzy beat.

Today we had a nice little sleep in and then headed out to the historic ‘Wrigley Field’ home of the Chicago Cubs. I went souvenir hunting and the game was actually gong quite quickly – not like the Yankees. After a few big hits and the score around 5-3 the heavens opened. It was quite funny watching the groundsmen cover the diamond and one guy fell over and was covered with the plastic! We decided not to wait for the rain delay and heaed back to our plush hostel.

The Kiwis and Aussies combined for dinner at a nice German place, lamb chops – yummo and a salad and then a few of us headed to the highest building in the USA and western hemisphere – Willis, formally Sear’s Tower, all the way up to the 103^rd floor and the world’s tallest building for about 22 years. The views were fantastic and I dared to go out on the glass bottom viewing deck and have a piccy taken. Once satisfied we did some souvenir shopping before heading back home to pack and enjoy a comfy bed.