At my camp there are three international counsellors - me, another English girl and a girl from New Zealand. Obviously, we all stayed at camp for the two week break. We've also been joined by a handful of Americans who drop in and out.
One of the Americans very kindly offered to drive us to Chicago for the weekend. It was only 3 hours (ish) away, so not a massive undertaking. We set off in the evening on Friday 29th June after booking ourselves into the IHSP hostel in Damen.
The drive was kind of boring, with the most interesting thing to see being a wind farm! We have wind turbines in the UK, but nothing of that magnitude (that I've seen). There were literally hundreds of them, stretching off for miles.
We arrived in Damen (a suburb, which was later recommended by a friend who used to live in Chicago!) sometime in the evening. We drove around a lot. The biggest issue with the hostel, from our perspective, was that there was nowhere to park outside the main building for us to check in. We literally pulled up at a Tow Zone and had to dump the car with our hazards on. That was once we found the building...! Despite these minor problems, the hostel was actually really nice. We were in a different building, a couple of blocks away (again, no parking - we parked on a residential street somewhere) and had a 4 person, private room (i.e. not a dorm). The beds looked like Ikea bunks, but were in good condition with nice smelling bedding. The entire building was quite nice - apparently it's a relatively new hostel. They offered free pancakes at the main building from 8am-11am.
Once we got ourselves settled and showered, we headed out into Damen to find food. This turned into a problem, since it was 10pm and we had someone with us who was under 21. A lot of places wouldn't let us in, even for food, without ID. We finally ended up eating pizza someplace, which was nice, but the whole situation was frustrating.
We then decided to head back to the main hostel building, which had a rooftop terrace. We hung out up there (we had it to ourselves) for at least an hour. There was an outdoor gig nearby, so we could hear the music from the roof, could see the lights from all the buildings downtown, and watched fireworks from all directions. Overall, an excellent way to end the night!
We aimed to get up at 8.30 the next morning, go get pancakes and then head downtown. Sadly, this did not work out. This was partly my fault, since I was in charge of the alarm! I didn't notice that my alarm was set for "Wednesday, Thursday, Friday" (it's a second hand phone and the alarm hadn't been used since it was given to me). I woke up at 9.30am and eventually hauled everyone else out of bed. They then decided they needed showers, which took a while as apparently everyone else in the hostel also needed showers at 9.30am! We reached the main hostel building for approx. 10.30am, by which time all the pancakes were gone. We gave it up as a bad job and went on a hunt for cheap brunch.
The hostel provided us with a list of Cheap Eats, which included brunch. The first place we tried had increased their price, and we decided it was no longer worth it. The decision was made to try the other suggestion for breakfast. Thus began an hour (or more) long trek around Damen. We got so lost it wasn't even funny! At one point we stood at a stop sign, trying to figure out where to go (the American's smart-phone wasn't being very smart), when me and the Kiwi spotted a cafe in the distance. We made a couple of tired comments about it looking like there was food over there, before being dragged off down another street. Half an hour later we find ourselves stood outside that same cafe. That's where we ended up having lunch. Seriously. Half an hour later.
I don't know if something got into my shoe or what, but by this point my foot hurt and I wanted to change into flip-flops. The sky was also a seriously ominous black in the distance. We agreed to go back to the hostel to get our waterproof coats.
The hostel was a lot further than we thought, and by the time we got there it was so dark the streetlights had come back on! The wind was fierce, and a few drops of rain were plopping down onto us. We almost ran into the building, and by the time we walked the 50 steps up to our room (it was a lot of stairs, so we counted them!), it was pouring it down outside. Good timing!
We waited for about half an hour, hoping that the rain would let up, before we decided that we wouldn't melt and should just go anyway. Grabbing our raincoats and our sunglasses ("optimistic but realistic", Kiwi), we ventured back outside.
The rain wasn't too terrible, and we jumped onto a bus fairly quickly. The bus took us to a pretty "sketch" part of town, where we could get a train into downtown. We found out later there was a train station quite near to us and the entire bus journey was a waste, but so it goes! We discovered we could not buy an "all day" train ticket at the station. We could buy one...but had to go to a nearby supermarket to do so...! This was very odd, but we wanted the $5 all day ticket and complied. Tickets in hand, we finally boarded the train and so our downtown adventure began!
Our destination was Millennium Park, and we enjoyed walking around there. We got to see what we think was a Quinceañera - a Latin American celebration of a girl's 15th birthday, which is the transition from childhood to womanhood. Our American friend explained that to us, as all I knew was that there was a teenage girl in a bright pink, huge dress! Her and various other people in pink clothing were having their photos taken around "The Bean" and other places in Millennium Park.
As it was much too hot for little English Roses like me, we did take a brief stop to dip our toes in some cool water - as did many other people!
We had a leisurely stroll along the BP Bridge and the surrounding area, then stopped for lunch at Panera Bread. While we ate we discussed our options, and decided on a Plan of Action. Next stop would be the Buckingham Fountain - one of the largest fountains in the world.
It was pretty spectacular! Absolutely huge, and really quite ornate. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like it. I loved it! I also discovered that I'm definitely the daughter of a photographer...but not because of any particular photographic skills of my own (all the photos in this post were taken by me though). We wanted a photo taking of all of us, and I pointed to a nearby couple and said "ask them to take it". Turns out the man was a photographer, and was very willing to help us out.
No, that's not us in the photo!
The fountain was at the edge of Lake Michigan, and we could see Navy Pier in the distance. Navy Pier didn't seem too far away and sounded cool, so we set off in that direction. I don't think we were even halfway there before we were exhausted! It had been a long, hot day and we rapidly lost interest. We're not very hardcore tourists - we didn't even see Sears Tower! Mostly because it was closed...
(Note: I had zoomed in significantly to take this photo - we were much further away than this!)
We started to feel a little hungry, and my friend remembered she'd heard of a great pizza place that she thought was nearby. We agreed that Chicago-style Pizza was a necessity, so we set off on the hunt for this pizza place.
We should have remembered how much of an epic failure our last attempt at finding a specific food place was! I don't know how far we walked, or for how long, but I know for sure we walked in a massive circle at least twice. Halfway there her not-so-smart phone died, so it was even less use than before. Nooooo! Eventually we ended up at a different Italian place, eating a different Chicago-style Pizza! It was a huge, thick pizza and did look quite good. Sadly I don't like pizza, and will only eat garlic bread pizza, so I had spaghetti instead.
They brought out this huge, and I mean huge bowl of spaghetti bolognaise. I ate a lot, I was constantly eating the whole time, and didn't even make a dint. It was unbelievable. In the end I put it in a box and gave it to an old, toothless homeless woman.
After this it was time to head back to Damen, which is when we discovered that we didn't need to go on the bus - the train took us almost the whole way there!
We staggered back to our hostel, with the intention of showering and changing, then going back to the rooftop terrace. Unfortunately by the time we all felt sufficiently clean, we were very comfy in our various beds and couldn't bear the thought of more walking. I think we hit the hay at about 10.30pm! Oh yes...we lived the high life in Chicago!
The next morning we actually woke up at 8.30am (well, I did, the others were harder to wake up) and were out of the hostel by 9.30. We dropped our bags in the car, then went and got pancakes. We had to make them ourselves, and had to share the two small griddles with other travellers, but they were very tasty! I had two huge pancakes - yum yum yum!
We checked out, visited a couple of shops, then it was time to head back home to Indy.
The drive was just as long and hot as the drive there, but it was enjoyable singing loudly along with the radio for a few hours with my friends! We got 80-cent slushies when we were almost home, and rolled into Camp on a major sugar rush!
I spent the rest of the evening catching up with my facebook, uploading photos, had a long, hot shower, did my laundry (oops, that's still in the dryer!), and other relaxing things. I needed to sit down after all that sitting down!
Tomorrow we plan on going into Indianapolis in the afternoon, to visit the canal then go to Mass Ave for a free wine tasting. I don't like wine, but I love Mass Ave, so I'm happy to go along! The day after is then 4th July. At the moment our plan is to take a picnic, a Frisbee and maybe a football, then hang out in a park, watch the fireworks, then abandon the under-21s and go out drinking downtown!
Going to be an amazing week I think, and I'll be sure to let you guys know how it goes!
Best wishes!
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