Sleepdriving

Fopp is awesome.

I'm slowly getting around to finishing my posts about America, I've not had much time what with working and trying to finish the Twilight series. I never should've started reading them, they are verging on ridiculous, but they are written in a way similar to the taste of Pringles, in that once you start you can't stop. 

I've been having random bouts of lethargy. I think it's in direct conflict with the rare bursts of pure happiness that have happened in the last few days. But caffeine helps to balance it out. So if I find myself living off caramel frappaccinos (despite their inferiority to the American equivalent) I won't take the blame - even if it does result in £3 disappearing every day. 

Grand Archives are awesome. I wish Fopp stocked more of my current favourite music, so I could force it on other people. For now I'm constricted to Death Cab, Sufjan, Arcade Fire etc. Not even Nada Surf can pass the barrier, because we don't appear to stock more than 4 copies of any of their albums. 

Oh well. I need sleep now, so I don't turn up at work tomorrow despondent and lethargic. God knows I don't want to hear myself saying 'hi' in that miserable tone again. 

bai.x.

Piazza, New York Catcher

So we went to the Statue of Liberty. There were a zillion people waiting for the ferry, so we queued for an hour. Somehow I always manage at least a low level of retardation - I didn't take a coat. Having become accustomed to the warmth of Chicago, I went out in a hoody with my scarf thinking this would protect me from the cold on a ferry when it was reaaalllyy windy. What an idiot. 

We waited and waited, and all the time I was staring over at the Statue of Liberty thinking "it actually looks really small". We were kept entertained by a dude playing a steel drum. Eventually we got inside to have our bags checked and be metal detected or whatever. At this point, a guy came along in naval uniform and was let through in front of us. It was one of those weird things that would just never happen in England - but just shows the importance of the armed forces to Americans. 

Anyway, eventually we got on the ferry and it was really cold and overcrowded and we stupidly went out on the top so I almost died of freezation. The Statue of Liberty is disappointingly small, there's no two ways about it. I just expected it to be this fucking huge thing, and it wasn't. But there was a nice view of Manhattan, and plenty of American flags flying. The boards which showed you which buildings were which on the skyline still had the Two Towers on. Somehow you would've thought that in the last 7 years they would've made some kind of effort to update them, but apparently not. Either that or it's just they refuse to remove them from any picture - which is the option I would go with, as you can actually buy postcards of the NY skyline with a ghost-like World Trade Center in. It's pretty weird. 

After we wandered all around we went inside to get food. Expensive but nice food - although it was burger and chips. Or crinkly fries should I say. However due to overcrowding we were once again forced outside, and as it was ridiculously windy, my crinkly fries were freezing cold before I could eat them all. Fail. In a sea of people with green crowns on we wandered back to the ferry, sat inside this time, decided not to bother with Ellis Island, and returned to land. 

We caught the metro to near the World Trade Center, and walked around Ground Zero which is basically a giant building site with lots of cranes and stuff. We were going to go into the visitor centre they had there, but it cost money - I can't remember how much, and I know I sound cheap, but somehow it just didn't seem worth it. It was quite a strange feeling to be standing there though - knowing that was where everything began - the war on terror etc. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it must've been like that day. I guess if I'd been to NY before it happened I'd have more of an idea, but it was like trying to imagine King's College if I'd never seen it. Sometimes even when you're standing right in front of things, the enormity of the situation still fails to hit you. 

When we were walking away, this random man started talking to me - he was just like "Hi" and I was like "wtf?" and then he just started having this conversation with us as we failed to get away fast enough. He was working on the memorials for the Ground Zero site, and told us he was chipping away at what was left of the foundations of one of the towers. Anyway, and then he showed us these bits of concrete and said they were part of the tower. I sort of pretended to believe him and actually care, especially as he seemed to think he'd get arrested. And then he kept talking to us about where we were staying etc, and it was all a bit random until he eventually went away. 

Then we walked up Broadway for what seemed like forever, stopped for Starbucks halfway, saw what used to be CBGBs, and then kept walking. By this time it was getting dark, and it was getting to the point when we should've started searching for food. Instead I suddenly feel Marie yanking my arm, because we're walking past a Virgin Megastore. The level of excitement was fairly undeniable - purely because we hadn't seen a music store in Chicago or DC. So we spent about an hour - if not more - browsing through all the CDs, me looking desperately for all the obscure bands I like that shops in England never have the CDs of, Marie picking up more CDs than she could actually afford (which resulted in me having to put about half of them back for her). Eventually we made our purchases and left.

The food search began. We wandered up the road, somewhere near Union Square, and found a gourmet food market. We decided just to get random food like crisps and salad and marshmallows (which were plastic-y) - whilst we were looking around we came across some familiar food. Oh McVities, how I missed you. I was quite excited to see this familiar pack of biscuits, until I saw the price. $6.99. Are you kidding me? That wouldn't even cost 80p in England. I had to take a photo. After that we went back to the hostel, ate salad and watched the Big Bang Theory. Good times. 

NYC

Hi.
I'm in New York right now. Can't sleep because the roads are too noisy. I won't say much now, except that i really want a cup of tea and that i'll put up backdated posts about my trip when i get back home.
Also, I'm not a fan of NY...but more about that will come.

Bai.x.

Coney Island

The train to NY was fairly uneventful, although smaller than the one we'd taken to Washington - but that was probably because the journey was only 3 hours instead of 18. 

When we arrived in New York I decided I hated it. There's nothing like bad signposting in a strange city whilst dragging a huge suitcase around to fuel hatred. We went down into the subway, which was practically impossible to navigate - so we ended up asking loads of people where the hell we were supposed to go. Of course, you'd think once you knew which line you were supposed to be on it'd be fairly easy to work out - but it's not. They don't have huge maps of the line saying which stop you're at and which way it goes like they do on the Tube. That would just be too easy. They also have an Express and a Local line on each platform, which is something I still don't get, although I now understand a line in Paper Boats by Nada Surf - "as the express train passes the local".

So after over an hour of that, we arrived in Brooklyn, where it was raining. It wasn't even proper rain though, it was like walking through a cloud, that horrible misty rain. English rain please, now. Of course, then it gets even better. We only have a map of Manhattan, and the directions given by the hostel we're staying at are unbelievably vague. So we're wandering around Greenpoint for another half hour before we come across two guys who Marie asks where we're supposed to go, and they point us in the right direction - and ask us if we're from England - "oh coool". 

Turns out we'd managed to walk 4 blocks in the wrong direction ( I realised later it was purely because we'd taken the wrong exit from the subway - if the directions had said which exit we were meant to go out of then all probably would've made sense). So 2 hours after arriving at Penn Station, we finally got to the hostel. We got up to our room, and there was a double bed. Oh. Right. So we had to go back down, change rooms - up another floor. Finally, we were sorted. 

It was after 6 and dark, we had no idea where the subway entrance even was after all our wandering around, so we just decided to go in search of food. I still wanted Chinese food, and after some wandering around, trying to decide which places looked decidedly dodgy, we went past Starbucks and McDonalds to a small Chinese restaurant. We got takeaway because we had a TV in our room, so it was about time we watched some trashy American TV. They gave us cutlery and fortune cookies :) - although, we ordered chicken fried rice & vegetable chow mein - the chow mein was fine, but instead of chicken fried rice, we had a thing of boiled rice & some weird chicken and cabbage thing, which was nice, but by the morning beared more resemblance to green frogspawn. 

The next morning, our first aim was to get a map of Brooklyn after yesterday's experience. We went to Barnes & Noble on 5th Avenue (only just being able to navigate the subway) and bought a map, which we only realised after we bought it that it smelt gross. Oh well. It was a fairly nice day, if not a little colder than we'd experienced anywhere else, so we took the subway down to Coney Island. It was much more straightforward just sitting on a train for 50 mins. 

It was pretty there, and there were people playing on the beach. I didn't really mind that "everything was closed at Coney Island" - it was nicer that way, because I could only begin to imagine how overcrowded it must be in the summer when the fairground was open. We walked up and down the pier - decided against going to the NY Aquarium, and then took the train back. It was on the way back that I caught my first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty - it was quite tiny from that far away, but I thought it must be more impressive closer to. Yeah right. 

We got off at Rockefeller Center and went to Sbarro - I got spaghetti & meatballs. Somehow I always manage to forget about not eating spaghetti in public. After that we spent a while trying to find out where the closest cinema was so we could go and see Role Models. We went up to Times Sq, and found two opposite each other - one showing it, and the other one not. The film was seriously funny - I'll probably get it on DVD when it comes out, even though I don't know if it's come out in England yet. The best part was at the end when they all dressed up like Kiss - and this little kid is like Gene Simmons. Fucking hilarious. 

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

Washington DC.

After the horrible disappointment that was the 2.5 hour delayed train (despite the awesome scenery - now I want to visit Pennsylvania as well) we arrived in DC at 4:30pm, as opposed to 1:45. We took the most ridiculously cheap bus in the world - $1 to potentially go about what would be over half the distance of my journey into Cambridge - and were dropped practically outside the hostel. 

Hostel was nice enough, although it had the slowest lift in the world - we were standing there for what seemed like ages as it made it's way back down to the ground floor, and took just as long taking us up to the 3rd floor. After that I vowed to use the stairs at all times except when I had suitcase in hand. So by the time we were sorted, it was time to eat and not much else. 

So the difficult task of finding somewhere to eat began. Of course, finding somewhere to eat in a city you've never been to is difficult at the best of times, but when you walk past places which are packed and offer valet parking, with no menu outside, you think "can I afford this?". As a result we quickly decided that any place that offered valet parking was not the place for us. 

We walked around for probably about an hour - a rat ran across the pavement in front of us at one point, and we caught our first glimpse of the Capitol building at night. 

I really wanted Chinese food at this point, so we headed to Chinatown only to be confronted by a woman who I felt sorely tempted to call a socialist, purely because she was clearly trying to avoid that word - she offered us CDs and posters and magazines that had been created by people in her commune, and as this kind of thing had already happened to us enough in Chicago we pretended not to have any money, at which point the woman offered to follow Marie to an ATM so she could give her some money. We told her we'd come back later and made sure we didn't go anywhere near there again. It was ironic as we both observed that in England people would rarely approach us, and yet in America we seemed to be the most approachable people. 

Just along from the crazy woman we saw Nandos. Suddenly all the wandering for food had been worth it. Oh Nandos. It was like being back in England - except the food was bigger, leaving me unable to eat all of it despite the fact that my last proper meal had been over a day ago. We left happy and barely able to walk. 

We arrived back at the hostel - I couldn't be bothered to wait for the lift, despite my barely being able to walk due to Nandos, left Marie, and took the stairs. I got up to our floor, and there was a woman waiting by the pay phone. She was blind, and seemed a little strange, she asked me what the time was, I gave it to her and then carried on walking towards our room, even though I thought I heard her asking me to stay and talk to her. A few minutes later, having expected Marie to have got the lift by this time, I thought I heard her voice out in the hall. Being fairly aware that the woman was still out there, I left it. After about 15 minutes I thought I heard Marie's voice again, and so I texted her asking her where she was. A couple of minutes later she knocked on the door. 

It turned out the woman had also asked her the time when she'd got out of the lift, and Marie had stayed and talked to her as she requested. Except, the woman was homeless and apparently quite clearly mentally ill, as she said that "they" had taken her friend, and she'd been put here, and every night people came and attacked her. The hostel people apparently wouldn't help her - Marie told her we were leaving for New York soon, and she asked her to get someone to come and help her as though the whole of DC was in on some kind of conspiracy. We spent the rest of our stay trying to avoid any further conversations with her - trying to listen out for her before we went to the bathroom. Maybe it was unnecessary. 

The next morning we left around 10, walked down to the White House, past the Treasury Building, round the back, past the Dwight Eisenhower Building (can't remember what it was for) and then round to the front of the White House. I noticed that the flowers in the pots on the side of the road were all red, white and blue - this I thought, was taking it a bit too far. There were lots of people taking photos, and we noticed some girls who were probably about 10 or 11 wearing McCain-Palin 08 t-shirts. Um. Bit late, don't you think? Besides, the political wishes of children are slightly disturbing. Those kids probably have no idea the sort of horrifying impact Sarah Palin would've had on America if they had won. 

We walked down to the Washington Monument, only to find out that they have a stupid ticketing policy which involves them selling tickets from 8am until they're sold out, so even though we arrived there mid-morning, they were already sold out = no going up the Washington Monument, making it suck even more that we only had a day there. 

After that we walked down to the long line of Smithsonian Museums and went into the Natural History Museum. It was clearly the wrong day for this, as the road outside was filled with yellow school buses, and inside was filled with small children. However, we braved it for a while and wandered about. They had a crystal/mineral section, which had one bit with expensive pretty jewellery once owned by royalty & other rich people. There was one pretentious family who repulsed me as the father got his (very spoilt looking) daughter to pose with the biggest fake smile in front of various diamond necklaces. 

It got to the point where I couldn't take any more of small American children, so we went into the National Gallery which was nice, big and empty with leather doors :S - had a fairly short wander around there, just finding the sections we actually wanted to look at - me - Renaissance, Marie - 18th/19th C European. I was sad to find that they had a distinct lack of Edvard Munch. Then I realised the reason for this was probably because most of his work is in Oslo. 

When looking at the map the day before I'd seen that there was an International Spy Museum which wasn't too far from other places we were visiting, and so we both agreed that this was something we had to see. They had a cafe there as well, so we sat and ate lunch before going into the museum. I got a hot dog, which much to my disappointment (apparently it did say on the menu, but I hadn't noticed) was a Frankfurter as opposed to an actual sausage. I was missing English food by this point, and could've done with a hot dog more similar to the one I'd had at Latitude this year. 

Instead I got a tiny hot dog which was covered in something which was meant to be English Cheddar, but had more resemblance to Red Leicester... and not even nice Red Leicester, as well as too much raw onion and funny bacon bits which were actually quite nice. Marie got chicken goujons, one of which was raw - something we should've complained about/sued for in true American fashion, but didn't - instead we left with Marie panicking about getting food poisoning. We walked through to the museum entrance and saw that it was going to cost $18. After the raw chicken there was no way we were going to pay that, so we left and went to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art instead. 

This was the first time (in my memory) that I'd seen any of David Hockney's work in real life, so it was quite exciting - even if there were only two pieces. One of them was truly amazing though - it was this whole room, where he'd set up panels of paintings so it looked kind of like a landscape (you really have to see it...) - this is how the Smithsonian describes it:

"The artist painted the two attached canvases and floor piece to look like a tiny, tangled world blown up to a preposterous size. Three-dimensional and painted patterns and shapes suggest enchanted forests and streams. These appear to advance and recede with the changing colors provided by a nine-minute computer program, and the viewer follows these shifts as he would the episodes of a stage play."

It was pretty amazing just to sit there and watch how it changed with each change in the lights. 

By the time we got out of there, the sun was beginning to set, so we got some coffee and then headed over to the Capitol. It was fenced off, and there was building work going on on the steps - the signs on the fence said they were making preparations for the 2009 inauguration ^.^

We must've stayed there for almost an hour, and I probably took as many photos of the Capitol as I did from Sears Tower. It was verging on ridiculous. But then I turned around, and the Washington Monument had become a silhouette, and the 'Reflecting Pool' over the road mirrored it, and all the street lights - it was so pretty *lots more photo taking*. At that point I was sure my camera battery was going to run out before the end of the day, and annoyingly I was right. 

I really wanted to go to the Jefferson Memorial - but by the time we'd left the Capitol it was dark, and after walking all the way down 14th St to the Interstate, we realised that the map we had was crap because it didn't show that there wasn't a path for us to get to it that way. So instead we walked all the way down 15th, and looked at it from across the lake, as by that point it was too much further to walk to. 

Instead, we went to the WW2 memorial (below) - each of the stone pillars around the fountains had the name of a state on. This was the last photo I managed to get before my camera cut out for good. We kept walking, and reached the Lincoln Memorial. As we walked up I could see these huge white boards by the front of the (yet another) 'Reflecting Pool' - I wondered if there was more building work going on. Then, as we came round in front of them I could see that they were for Obama. Filled with messages congratulating him on winning, and wishing him good luck. Honestly, seeing that was just as good as seeing him win. I felt genuinely moved reading some of the messages, realising (although not for the first time) how many people he'd touched with his messages of hope and change. It was such a fitting place for them to be as well, right in front of Abraham Lincoln, sitting in his giant chair. 

I was tired and hungry, but we still had to walk further, past some of George Washington Uni, the sorority buildings and the Kappa Kappa Deltas or whatever the fuck they were. We caught the bus back to Chinatown and went straight back to Nandos. Nom. 

We returned to the hostel and prepared for our journey to NYC the next morning. Sleeeeep. 

Lake Michigan

On the morning of Election Day we went to Shedd Aquarium. On the way we bought Obama badges. All the security was already up around Grant Park, and when we needed to cross the road to get to the aquarium, Marie decided that she'd walk a bit further down the road behind the blockade to cross - which provoked a giant scary security guy to say 'Can I help you?' in the most intimidating way possible. Which then provoked me to ask my sister what the fuck she was doing, and cross at the crossing. We wandered around and took lots of pictures of fish. We saw sharks and a turtle that had been hit by a propellor, so it's shell was cracked at the back so it swam around with it's arse up. 

Afterwards we went back to the hostel & Clark. We both bought new shoes, and then went to the awesomest cupcake shop where we nommed cupcake. NOM. Then we returned downtown to Grant Park and the Election Rally (see previous post). Half of Chicago (or more) must've been down there, because the flood of people after it was over was unbelievable. That has to be the most people I've ever seen at one time. 

The next morning we checked out and then wandered about a bit, visiting Wrigley Field (home of Chicago Cubs) and then walked to the lake. It was pretty and there were ducks and boats. On the way back to the hostel to pick up our stuff, we went into a corner shop place. I bought apple juice, purely because I was missing drinking things that weren't fizzy. It tasted like gherkins. And wasn't out of date. Marie bought chocolate Skittles, which were kind of like Revels in the sense you get different chocolate covered flavours. Except they were Skittles, and had horrible flavours, especially smore flavour. I still don't know what a smore is, I only know that they are fucking nasty. Chocolate doesn't really go with the texture of Skittles either. 

We made our way to the station, in plenty of time. We checked our baggage in. There were loads of Amish people about. I probably saw at least 3 families - I was fairly fascinated as I've never (understandably) seen an Amish person in real life. They were speaking Pennsylvania Dutch, which was really weird. 

We boarded the train, and got to sit upstairs - the train was huge and double decker.  The train departed on time, however about half an hour into the journey, just outside of Chicago we were stopped because of signal failures - for an hour. I fell asleep and forgot about the

 delay, but when I woke up later it turned out that sometime during the night we'd been stopped for another hour as a freight train had hit a car. The result of all these delays meant we got into Washington DC at 4:30 instead of 1:45 - which to be honest, was better than the best (5pm) or worst (7pm) case scenarios the Amtrak people put us at - however, it did mean we didn't have enough time to go and visit Arlington Cemetary, and basically ended up with only a day in DC. 

Yes We Can

"Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change"

And so Obama's words came true.

Tonight, hundreds of thousands of people flooded to Grant Park to witness what will undoubtedly be one of the most important US elections of all time. 

We arrived at about 6:45 - in time for the first polls closing at 7pm. As only about 70,000 people were allowed into the ticketed event, we were pushed into Butler Field, with 3 giant TV screens. We watched CNN bring in each state's votes - Presidential and Congressional. The advert breaks were frequent, but the end of each one marked a moment of hope for further news that the man we wanted would be elected. There were massive cheers each time Obama won a state, and boos just as loud when McCain won one. Thankfully the cheers far outweighed the boos. 

I heard the people around me telling each other what they'd done to help the campaign - one guy mentioned skipping school to go out and knock on people's doors to make sure they were voting for Obama - people saying how proud they were of their country, of the amount of people voting for him. It was clear we weren't the only ones to have travelled miles to witness this - people from Ohio and North Carolina, and no doubt from even further afield than that. 

Around 8:30, with Obama on about 160 electoral votes, and McCain on about 70, analysis of the results on CNN showed that McCain would have to win every state that hadn't been declared yet, with the exception of Washington, Oregon and California just to get the 270 electoral votes he needed. It was at that point I realised we'd won - there was no way McCain was going to win all of those states. I've been following Obama religiously since the first primary, and it all came down to this moment. 

By 9:15, Obama's total was over 200. All we were waiting for now was 10pm, for the WA, OR and CA polls to close for what we already knew was true to be confirmed. At 9:59:50 a countdown began - in 10 seconds, those all important polls would close.

10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

The crowd erupted. Between heads and waving arms I managed to see on the screen "Barack Obama Elected President". I cheered as loud as I possibly could. Change had finally come, that moment marked the end of the Bush era, and the beginning of America's future. Whether the people surrounding me had been waiting 8 years, 4 years, 21 months or even just a few, this is what it all came down to. The chants of "Yes We Can" and "No More Bush" grew louder. 

McCain's concession speech came at 10:15. He praised Obama sincerely, and quietened his own crowd when they booed. He was humble and respectful. After the past few weeks of mud-slinging I hadn't expected that level of sincerity from him, but there it was, and I, as I'm sure many others would say, actually respect him for that speech, for calling for the divides in America to be bridged, and for promising to work with Obama. He drew cheers from the crowd in Grant Park (except at the mention of running mate Sarah Palin)

Obama's victory speech came just after 11. The crowd was silent, as the new President Elect spoke of the greatness of America, and the power of democracy. A year ago it didn't seem he'd make it through the primary season, and yet on that night he stood less than a mile away from me, the proof that America was ready to put its prejudices behind it and vote for a better future. 

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

Some people may be sceptical as to whether Obama will honestly bring change to America, that he can make the differences he has promised. Standing in that park that night I could see he had brought people together in a way I'd never seen before - he'd given these people hope. People without jobs, losing their homes, not being able to afford basic things, people with no health insurance, people who were losing faith by the day, who lost faith a long time ago in a man who never should have been elected in the first place. He had brought them all together and offered them something new, something they could believe in. 

Change is coming. 20.01.09.

The Seer's Tower

Chicago x12

So at some ridiculous time in the morning we got a taxi to Heathrow. After what was a fairly short wait thanks to massive queues in shops after security, we were on the plane. I like 8 hour flights, in the sense that you get free stuff (I have come away with Virgin Atlantic socks, toothpaste, toothbrush, pen and eye masky thing) and you get to watch films and TV. So I sat and watched Batman and Sex & the City. The only bad thing about the flight was the small child kicking me in the back half the way, and the slightly questionable mashed potato with "cheese" on top which had too much salt in.

Between films I watched the map which showed where we were, as well as how high we were flying and what speed we were flying at. We went across Ireland, up towards Greenland, into Newfoundland, travelling down through Canada into Michigan, across Lake Michigan and into Chicago. After about 7 and 1/2 hours I looked down and saw this:

Chicago was already my favourite city. 

Went through border control, and were questioned as though we were guilty until proven innocent, which is quite a scary thing to have to face when you're straight off an 8 hour flight. 

Compared with NY, the El was easy to work out, although we had to change to a shuttle bus for some of the journey, and it took quite a while. When we got to Fullerton, we walked in the wrong direction for about 20 minutes before Marie realised that her sense of direction may be quite bad. My first impressions of the hostel, particularly the corridor that our room was on, was that it looked like it could be in a horror film. It was kind of creepy, and after that I developed a slight fear of being stabbed in the bathroom. 

We wandered up Clark in search of food, until we were too hungry, gave up and went to Dominos. They have huge pizzas. Then we went into a 24 hour Starbucks, and I asked for hot chocolate but the woman didn't understand me the first time, and I suddenly realised that I was speaking with the strongest English accent I've ever had. Unlike Marie who thought she'd start talking American, I just became more English.

The next day we had cold pizza for breakfast. Nom. Then we went on a very long walk, around Lincoln Park, down by the lake, round and back up to the zoo, which was just randomly in the middle of the park - and free - my favourite kind of zoo. It was pretty cool, and we wandered around for quite a long time, before going to the food court there. I was dreading the food in some ways - and my worries were directly answered by a vat of orange melted "cheese" - a spoonful of which was being poured over the person in front's chips. Ew. So I avoided the cheesy chips and just had a burger and chips. But there was too much food! I could barely walk after lunch - and at this point I realised that it was going to be like this every day. 

After lots and lots more walking around and several hours later, we ended up back on Clark, eating gelato, after being given free samples. The friendliness of people was something me and Marie couldn't quite adapt to. Honestly, I have missed grumpy people who will only help you with the greatest reluctance, and who would never approach you by their own will. We needed more food than ice cream though, so we went to this place called Pockets. I have never seen a sandwich so big. It was probably about 8"x6" and stuffed full - to way overflowing - of vegetables. It would easily make two meals - and so I had mine for dinner and breakfast. The only setback was the amount of red onion in it - there could have been a whole raw red onion easily. Too much! But the crispy noodles were awesome. 

Went down to Navy Pier the next day. It was ridiculously hot - but windy - it was more like summer than the whole of this summer in England. Ate a Haagen Daaz hot fudge sundae, once again, too much. We went on the McDonalds ferris wheel - in the wind it was pretty scary cos the gondola was swinging. Eek. 

After all the ferris fun we took a bus to Michigan Ave, and went into the Apple Store (yay) and Borders, searched for a CD shop to no avail and then sat by the lake waiting for it to get dark enough so we could go up Sears Tower (it took me this long to get the Sufjan Stevens reference to it - The Seer's Tower - from the Illinois album).

Apparently you can see 4 states from Sears Tower - it's one of the tallest buildings in the world, and the view was stunning (doing a separate post with photos from it). I spent about half an hour just wandering around taking photos - film and digital - if there's one thing I love it's bright lights at night, so it had to be done properly, which resulted in me taking at least 50 photos. 

.more soon.

bai.x.