Joel and Adam's rather long car journey: Sweet Home Chicago

Chicago, Illinois - we came, we saw - we frickin' loved it!!!

After the flat, un-impressive views of the drive up through Indiana, we

knew The Windy City had to be something special in order to re-ignite our energies. As we drove up the Interstate toward the city, we already became suitably impressed with what we saw before us.

We check into the Days Inn - Lincoln Park-North, and almost immediatly headed into the city on the number 151 bus, which took us down Michigan Ave, which is pretty much the central hub to all the sights in the city. Almost immediatly you could tell that this is a city unlike any you'd find in Europe. It was clean, well-organised, and despite it's modern-feel, really rather beautiful. Tall skyscrapers reached high up to the few clouds that were dotted in the sky above. And with Lake Michigan to one side of us,

Chicago ebbed a beauty I had not seen in a city before. We wandered around the streets, underneath the El-trains rattling above us, and felt very much at home. Stopping off for a beer in The Berghoff (on W Adam's Street!), we soon discovered the water taxi's near Adam's St Bridge. It took us from just underneath the Sears Tower back toward Michigan Ave, where we took in another drink by the river before heading back to our hotel for a quick change, before we headed out to the bars along Division, where we sampled some very Irish bars.

The next day we headed back into the main Loop, and headed straight for Sears Tower (on the Water Taxi again), and made it our mission to head to the SkyDeck at the very top of the world's second tallest building. Here's Adam talking about the great view.

After the tower we took a wander to Grant Park, where we stumbled across the Taste of Chicago food festival, and sampled some proper Chicago-style Hot-Dogs. We had only a few food tickets, so Adam had to make-do with a sample portion of ice-cream - which ended up being about as big as his head.

Through Millenium Park we wandered next, which apparantly took four years too long to build (see it's not just the Brits that build things that become overdue), but was worth the wait, with some breathtaking architecture dotted around some well-trimmed lawns.

Adam then decided it was time to visit Lincoln Park Zoo, which I took as an opportunity to head back the hotel room to catch up on the sleep I'd been missing out on due to his constant snoring!! He jumped off the bus in Lincoln Park, and went and took some photos of some animals looking decidedly miserable in their caged environment. Needless to say it made him feel rather down seeing them in that state, and he came back to the hotel shortly.

In the evening we headed to Navy Pier for some good American food (again) and an added bonus of a massive fireworks display over Lake Michigan. "What was that in aid of?" I here you ask. Beats us. Think they were celebrating because it was a Wednesday or something. Only in America. It won't be the last of the fireworks we'll see on this trip, as we're off to St Louis now, where we'll be spending 4th July!!!