Day 4: Goodbye Chicago, hello Las Vegas!

In our last morning in Chicago, we hit the road to get to Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. After that we took a bus to reach the beach, get a last glimpse of the fabulous skyline and eat a Chicago style beef sandwich.

Goodbye Chicago, we rushed back to the airport to get on a flight to Vegas. We only had one night there.Our friend Kim received us warmly and so did the city. At last nice temperatures! We drove straight to Las Vegas Boulevard. We took some pictures at the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign, enjoyed the fountains at the Bellagio and had some dinner at the Cheesecake factory. Unfortunately, Penny had the day off and she works at a restaurant in Pasadena anyway.

After dinner, we went to Kim’s place to have some sleep. Last time when we visited her with Paul, she had some scorpion issues in her home, luckily this time there were none, so we could enjoy a worry-free night.

Day 3: Chicago in 24 hours

Day three arrived with a beautiful sunny morning. The weather had turned in Chicago and we had planned to do a lot during the day.
We started off in the Loop visiting the Chicago river, the Chicago theater and the famous bean.

After that we headed over to Museum Campus and took a bite of the Chicago style hot dog. Warning! Ketchup is strictly prohibited on them, at some places you might even have to dance for it.

Back in the city we took a lookout on the 103rd floor of Willis tower, formerly known as Sears tower. With its 442 meters it claimed the title of the tallest building in the US until recently, when the One WTC in New York has been topped out.


On our way to the Navy Pier, it was time to get some shrimps at a Bubba Gump restaurant. This restaurant chain was inspired by the movie Forrest Gump, and is a huge success in the US.

To grab some dessert and yet another magnificent view of the city, we climbed to the Signature Lounge on the 95th floor of the Hancock tower. It’s a well known secret that it’s not worth to pay for the observatory here: you can get a small bite in the lounge and just enjoy the view.

To finish up for the day, we booked 2 tickets for a stand-up comedy show in the Second City. It was a kind of improvisation night and, unexpectedly, we understood most of the jokes:)

Day 2: Arriving to Chicago

Virgin Atlantic flight number VS39 took us over from London to Chicago. The flight was around 8.5 hours long, but the in-flight entertainment system should have had kept us occupied. Should have, but this one was seriously from the 1980s. The ones who were lucky enough to have their systems failing permanently, got a portable DVD player. A bit before landing, the captain announced 11ºC/ 56ºF local temperature and we didn’t want to believe our ears. We were not prepared for such a bad weather, all our warm clothes were in Germany, where they belonged :P

After a short train ride from the airport, we met our couchsurfing hosts: Tony, Stephanie and their dog Hitch. They were in the middle of some garden grilling, although it was way too cold to stay outside.

In the evening we took a Metra train to downtown to enjoy the city a little bit, even though our jetlagged brains clocked way past midnight. Being Sunday, the city was absolutely empty and almost no pedestrians could be seen.

Looking for refuge we headed to sample Chicago’s most famous dish, the deep dish pizza, at Lou Manati’s. This is the place recommended by everyone. They don’t have many kinds of toppings, but it is worth a try.

Next day we had to see the best of Chicago, so we headed home and fell to bed.

Couchsurfing is king

Just a little retrospective to send out huge thanks for our first official couchsurfing hosts: Val and Theron.
They made our stay so pleasant in Chicago that we still wanna leave windy Frisco behind and go back to the not-so-windy city:)

 

Also not to forget our welcoming hosts in Toronto: Detti and Raza. Together with Mehmet, “Peppino”, Rafa and the other guys, they showed us how to party before the party:)

Last but not least huge thanks to our very first hosts, Fru and Jonathan, for offering their comfy couch in Montreal, and showing us what a real poutine is:)

Thank you all!