Day 7 & 8 - The Windy City

Ok, it must be about my turn to help out with the blog load.  Please forgive me if I go over a couple of things that Stu may have already mentioned in brief, there shouldn't be too much of that though.

Day 7 saw us waking up at around 10:30am, still in New Orleans.  We were tired but happy and it was time to move on.  We had bought a replacment for the busted old suitcase so I had to 'move house' into the new one.  It wasn't too bad and I can't tell you all how fantastic it is to have a properly working suitcase again.  I wrote a note on the old suitcase asking housekeeping to dispose of it in any way they saw fit.  That done, we packed up and headed for the train station.  We had a great time in the Big Easy and if/when we ever make it back over here I'm sure we'll head back there to check out some of the stuff we missed this time around.

Our transit from New Orleans to Chicago was aboard an Amtrack superliner.  There really isn't all that much to say about it either.  It's a train.  We had a superliner roomette which basically means you have marginally more room than people travelling in coach and you get a couple of meals included.  Alright, it was a little more than that as there was a bunk bed and the two seats folded out into a bed as well so we could both lie down for the night and get some sleep.  We enjoyed staring out the window at the changing scenery and were able to get up and walk about the train.  It even stopped every few hours to pick people up and we were able to get off, stretch our legs and have a smoke.  It was definitely an easier trip than the flight from MEL - LAX was.  Except for the part where I got up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and didn't realise Stu had gotten up and gone to the dining car.  I thought I was doing a marvellous job not waking him up and was lying there in my bed looking out the window at things passing by etc until I realised he wasn't actually in bed at all.  Turns out he had gotten up at about 5:30am.  I got up at about 5:45am and went to the toilet and locked the cabin door. As it turns out, no real harm was done, the train served breakfast at 6am and by the time I realised where he was, Stu had really only just finished his breakfast.  Sorry honey.

We arrived in sweet home Chicago just after 9am, collected our luggage and caught a cab to the Affinia Hotel.  Luckily for us, they had a room available at that time of day so we were able to check in right away.  Check in we did and then came upstairs for a shower and some fresh clothes.  Having showered we hung around the room for a little while updating the blog and generally getting ourselves sorted out until it was time to go and meet a couple of friends.  People at Paradox! The Musical.  Will know these two likely lads as SewerRatz and Jesus.  They were kind enough to come and pick us up from our hotel room and take us out on a private, personalised and rather unique tour of Chicago.  First stop was Buckingham Fountain, next to Millenium Park. 

We had a wander around there for a little while and then it was time to jump back in the car (so Ratz didn't get a ticket, even though it was his mission for the day) and head off to find something to eat.  We stopped off and had some nosh at a place that made kick arse sandwhiches.  I'm sorry guys, I honestly can't remember what it was called.  Was it Pick You Up? or something like that.  Anyway it was good.

UPDATE: Ratz says it was the "Pick Me Up Cafe". Thanks Ratz.

After lunch Jesus took us for a walk down the street so that we could grab a couple of photos at Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs, while Ratz went to check on the parking ticket situation.  I later found out that this was because of the fact that Ratz is a Sox fan and wanted no part of this Cubs home ground business.

Once we'd taken a few photos at the stadium we wandered down and were shown some of the more unique and intriguing stores that Chicago has to offer such as The Alley, a really cool games shop that had an amazing collection of Atari 2600 games (wish I still had my old console) and a really cool cigar shop.  After we'd wandered around for a while we all piled into the car.  Ratz took us out to show us the house where he grew up.  Well he really took us out there to show us China Town, which was "Just around the corner. Literally." but somehow got "turned around" and we ended up taking in a few extra sites as well. 

After we'd found China Town, Ratz thought it would be an awesome idea to introduce us to a shop called Horrorbles.  Unfortunately, he got "turned around" again and we ended up driving back through China Town.  We managed to make it to Horrorbles and rather than try to describe this fantastic place to you, I'll drop in the link and you can check it out for yourself. http://www.horrorbles.com/  While at Horrorbles, Rats needed to make a pitstop.  He was directed to a door with "redrum" written in red letters on it.  He walked straight in and then walked straight out again with a rather red face.  Turns out there was someone in the bathroom already, said someone was apparently only washing their hands but didn't have the door locked or call out when Ratz opened the door.

Gobb says: Horrorbles sells an awesome replica Freddy Krueger glove. Someone buy it for me for christmas k thnx bai.

We left Horrorbles and it was time to go to Val's Halla.  Now this store is amazing and beyond belief.  Val is an amazingly friendly woman who is full of fantastic stories and she has a store full of the most amazing collection of vinyl for sale.  Val doesn't just sell vinyl.  She also sells cassettes and CD's and can find pretty much any hard to get music, there's even a box four big boxes of 8 tracks!  Her shop's bathroom is also a shrine to Elvis Presley. Literally! If you have been looking for that hard to get track or album, give her site a look or send her an email. http://www.valshalla.com

By the time we left Val's Halla it was time to go and find something to eat again and Ratz knew just the place.  Before going to get something to eat we stopped in at an electronics warehouse that sold just about everything you could think of for very reasonable prices.  Stu had been looking for ans external hard drive for a while and managed to pick one up while we were having a browse.

Now its confession time.  Stu and I were both far too busy enjoying the awesome chilli and BBQ that we had stopped for, that both of us have completely forgotten the name of the place that we stopped to eat at.  As soon as I see Ratz or Jesus online, I will ask them and edit this post.  It really was good food though.  It wasn't just chilli and BBQ, they also do gyros and so we got some meat to share.  After breaking bread with Jesus and becoming incredibly full, we headed off to Ratz's best mate, Mike's place because Mike's wife, Stacey, works for a camera shop and said she could get a lense that we had been looking for, for our digital camera.  Unfortunately, there was a breakdown in communication over the phone and Stacey had bought the wrong lense home with her.  Not to be deterred, Mike and Stacey piled back in their car and took us back down to the shop for the correct lense.  Stu and I were both happy and grateful for this.  Our camera now has a sparkly new lense that can autofocus, amongst other things.  Thanks Stacey and Mike :-) REALLY!

UPDATE: The place we ate dinner was "Gemato's Grill". Gobb couldn't understand the guy at the counter, but that's ok because we're all pretty sure he couldn't understand Gobb either. Great food anyway.

By this time it was 8:00pm and a few of us were getting a bit tired.  So Jesus and Ratz were kind enough not to just leave us in the car park out in the middle of somewhere that was foriegn to us and dropped us back off at the hotel.  It was good timing too because they got caught in a big storm on the way home and then there were a couple of tornados sighted about 20 miles south of where they live.  Very glad they made it home safe and sound.

All in all it was an amazingly fun day.  We got a very unique view of Chicago, saw some awesome sights and met some excellent people.  One more aspect of the day that I haven't mentioned yet is that both Jesus and SewerRatz are a pair of the funniest guys that Stu and I have ever met.  We spent a fair bit of time in the car travelling from place to place and, while doing so, we were frequently in stitches of laughter because of the banter from the front seats.  Our sincere thanks to the two guys for taking a day out of their lives to show a pair of tired Aussies around their town.  We are really really grateful and hope we get to cross paths again sometime soon.

Once we'd returned back to the hotel room we were pretty much exhausted.  We settled down on the bed with our laptops to check emails and all of that sort of thing and after a couple of minutes there was a knock on the door.  Stu came back in from answering the door with a lovely bottle of Merlot and a card.  Gemma had been thoughtful enough to find out where we were staying and send us a bottle of Red.  Thanks Eddie, it really is far too cute and very much appreciated.  I hope you're all having a good time together.

So after a nice glass of wine it was time to head to bed.  We slept very soundly and didn't really wake up until 10:30am.  We haven't really gotten out and about all that much of Chicago today, mostly because it is windy as anything and only about 62/16 degrees.  We had woken up too late to get anything from the hotel's breakfast menu and were feeling pretty hungry.  We ended up downstairs at Gino's East ordering a couple of small deep dish pizzas.  Can I just take a moment to say YUM!  Neither Stu or I have ever had a deep dish before and I sure hope they wont be our last. (Actually, I already know we'll be eating deep dish again because we still have half of this mornings' left over and plan to have them for breakfast tomorrow.)

Anyway, it's nearly 6pm and we're going to be heading out to Buddy Guy's Legends Bar for dinner and a jam session tonight and then we're heading off to Missouri tomorrow.

Will write again soon in the meantime here's some random Chicago shots.