Off to the Windy City!! - Part 1

Because most of the people I met in Kansas were foreign, like me, we all agreed that we wanted to do a good amount of travelling.

Me and my roommates had discussed that one of the reasons we wanted to study in Kansas was because it was centrally located in the States, making it easier to travel to other states. We all decided we would go somewhere at Fall break but we weren't sure where yet...and we all had different ideas.

One of my roommates had family in Houston,Texas - so she decided to give them a visit during the break. My other roommates made plans to go to New York City together, as they both really wanted to go and one of them was meeting her brother there. As much as I knew I wanted to visit NYC, I fancied going nearer Christmas time and our fellow British/European friends were making plans to go to Chicago. So I decided to join them.

Me on the Greyhound

We went to Chicago by Greyhound bus, which was my first experience with these coaches. We had around two or three stops and it took us about twelve hours to get there. It was a bit of a nightmare...not the whole journey though. The trip to both Kansas City and Des Moines, Iowa was fine because the first journey was short and the second one wasn't busy so we had most of the bus to ourselves. However, the trip from Des Moines to Chicago was a nightmare. The bus was packed and we had to be separated. I was stuck next to this guy who wouldn't shut up - which I didn't mind at first, but when I was tired and wanted to sleep I wanted to kill him. Then he went to sleep and tried to rest on my shoulder and cuddle into me! Not only was I freaked out - I didn't sleep in fear that he would try and rest on me...which is not something I'm willing to do with a complete stranger. So I was extremely irritated.

Eventually, we got there in the early hours of the morning. Although Chicago is amazing - I would have been more excited had I gotten more sleep. Plus, it was still dark. The group decided we should get a coffee and breakfast somewhere before heading to the hostel to drop off our things...it was too early for us to check in anyway. So we found the nearest subway and a friendly man took us to a diner where they serve good food. We started the day with a good breakfast.

We then made our way to the hostel.

The hostel we ended up staying in was horrible, but it was in a good location and was very cheap - so we couldn't expect much from it. Plus, we had read reviews that it wasn't very nice, so we bought sleeping bags with us. Also, we were pretty lucky because the eight of us managed to share a room together and we didn't have to sleep with strangers so that was good. Although the room wasn't very secure seeing as we had to leave the room key with the receptionist every time we left the hostel, which made me slightly paranoid they might steal our stuff. However, as the people I was travelling with pointed out - they wouldn't get any customers if they stole stuff as people would have mentioned it in the reviews!

So we got to the hostel and got settled and showered. I wanted a nap, but also wanted to go out and explore as it was early in the day and it seemed pointless to go to bed now. We all agreed that we should go out and explore.

The first day felt like a dream and I can't remember now everything we got up to. However, I remember going to a place called Millennium Park which had loads of cool art and architecture. This included a big bean-shaped reflective mirror thing. One of the girls joked it was 'Chicago's Bean' and that we were flicking it! This became an ongoing joke during the trip...

I think we spent most of the first day exploring the city, looking at some cool buildings and looked around the shops briefly. The same day/evening we went to the Chicago Art Institute which wasn't really my kinda thing to be honest, but it was still cool to look around and experience! I think it was also on this night that we went to a traditional Chicago pizza place which served traditional Chicago-style deep dish pizza pies! They were amazing! It was also my first experience with pink lemonade which was delicious! It was pretty cool to have Chicago-style pizzas in Chicago!

The delicious deep dish pizza!

It was a really tiring day, but amazing at the same time! I wish I had appreciated it more when I was there. We did a lot on the first day and it was the start of more exciting things to come! Check out the blog next Monday to find out what happened on the rest of the trip!