I just flew in from the Windy City! By Al

"...the Windy City is mighty pretty.."

After an eventful morning spent at LAX and then subsequently crossing a timezone into Chicago, Cam and I found ourselves in our 'limo' headed for downtown Chicago. It was a rather grey afternoon and at 4pm with peak hour traffic, I felt as if we were back in Sydney, on the M5. But then there it was! Sears Tower lead a display of the beautiful Chicago skyline and as we pulled into our Hilton accomodation, I had a good feeling about the Windy City. This was soon confirmed as we arrived in our suite and discovered two bathrooms - that's right, one each! It was an awesome sight.

Sears Tower and another building which I believe they refer to as 'The flask'

That night, we headed down for a quick meal (can you believe we were both asked for ID when we ordered a bottle of wine? I was insulted) and then turned in for an early night.

The next morning, we headed to the street to locate our hop on hop off bus for which I had pre-booked some tickets the previous night. Armed with a map, it was quite easy to make it around.

It was such a beautiful day - no wind at all! - and Chicago is now on my list of favourite and most beautiful cities. I liken it to Perth - wide streets, a structured layout and Tuplips everywhere! Down the median strips, in little gardens along the main strip...it was a lovely sight and reminded me of what Spring smelt like.

Our hop on hop off was an open top double decker and took us to the major sights. We took in the financial district, Millenium Park (home of the giant bean) and even Gotham City town Hall ;-)

The bean at millenium Park, The corn cob apartments, The Chicago Theatre and Gotham City Town Hall (or a building in the Financial District)

We explored Navy Pier, the amusement centre for Chicago, however it was quite deserted on this particular Friday afternoon. We had a bite to eat at McDonald's and strolled onwards, taking in the breathtaking blueness of Lake Michigan. Once again, the pictures speak for themselves but this calm stretch of vast blue seemed endless and it was hard to comprehend that it was actually a lake and not the ocean. Try as I might, I could not see Michigan on the other side...

Back on the bus and our next stop was the Magnificent Mile - LA has Rodeo drive, New York has 5th Avenue, Sydney has Castlereagh street and Chicago has the Magnificent mile. Magnificent by my assessment for the beautiful flowers surely; the name brand shops just didn't do anything for me.

At the end of the mile, Cam and I decided to take the free elevator to the 48th floor of the Hancock Building and enjoy a cocktail whilst marvelling over the city skyline.

Our last leg of the bus trip took us to the Theatre district, where we patiently waited in line for our free sample of Garrett's popcorn - and geez, it was good! My first taste of caramel corn - please sir, I'd like some more...!!

Arriving at the hotel in the early evening, we decided to try out the hotel pool and spa, where we met an Hawaiian couple who picked us as being from Australia! Woohoo! After a bout of relaxing, we returned to our suite and decided to spoil ourselves with some room service - yum again! And it looked so pretty.

The next morning, we had the alarm set for a 4am wake up call - we were bound for the Big Apple!