Road Trip Part 2: Downtown Chicago

Having spent some time checking out the supermarkets, shoe shops and fast food places in suburban Illinois, we had a day to leave the 'burbs and head out into Chicago on the Northwest train that takes you into Oglivie Station.  We were really lucky that it was such a sunny day.  The city was at its best that way.

We headed for Willis tower (formerly Sears tower) first, 

hoping to do the tourist thing of going up to the top and taking some photos but there was a super-long queue and right next to us serious construction work was going on and making a LOT of noise, which the architect felt he just couldn't bear, so we decided to head off to Millennium park instead.

I've been here before, but I still marvel at the skyscrapers, overhead 'L' tracks and the crazy reflective 'bean' in Millennium park.  

The architect, with his brand new and groovy camera also marvelled at anything and everything around us.  It's his first time in the States, so he was lapping it all up and finding it all rather a lot to take in. 

While walking around Millennium park we got a taste of American parenting as a little kid who could not have been more than 4 years old, kept running ahead when his parents and older sister told him to wait.  The little tyke even stopped, turned to face his parents and said, "I can do whatever I want."  To which his parents just giggled and tried to persuade him to be more careful.  I would have given him hell.  What an ego!  If the kid thinks that at 4, what will he be like at 18?  God help that family.  The architect said he would have been yelled at and pulled into line bigtime if he'd said that to his parents when he was a kid.  

We continued on our way through the park and decided to aim for Navy Pier, 

and in resolute, totally un-American style, we walked all the way.  And it was a long way, believe me, and not paved with easy access either, but we got there and rewarded ourselves with huge Haagen Dazs ice creams.  Something called 'Rocky Road' had bits of Oreo cookies in it and chocolate ice cream with caramel topping.  Mmmm.

And that was our day, because then we had to walk all the way back (and on the walk back we saw this...)

(and this...)

(and this...)

(and this...)

(and this...)

to catch the 6.30pm train, because there isn't a 7.30pm one (for some unfathomable reason) so we would have had to wait until 8.30pm otherwise and that would have got us back to the suburb of Crystal Lake at about 10pm.  That just felt too late somehow.  I still think it's amazing how long it takes to get from Crystal Lake to downtown Chicago.  It's like travelling from Bath to London in the UK except the Illinois train stops at loads of places on the way (hence why it takes so long) and therefore goes comparatively slowly.  There's something about that slow progress that frustrates me and makes me feel like the suburbs are a nasty trap in the middle of nowhere.  But I must admit, it's easier for travelling west, which is what we did next of course.

Road Trip Part 1. The departure and the quirks and quickness of time

Who was it who said that if you've got time to write a diary, you probably haven't got anything interesting to write in it?  Maybe that was just a general comment that came from anyone who felt they couldn't really be bothered to write one.  Whatever the case, I'm certainly facing the difficulty of sitting down to write about what's been happening, when the general timetable since leaving Illinois has been to drive all day, find somewhere to eat at about 6ish and then get into a motel at 8 and battle with the quirks of that particular motel's internet connection to plan and organise where we're going to go the next day before dropping dead at about 11pm.    However, we have stayed in our current location for a couple of days in a row now, though not in the same motel, and that's given me a teensy bit of time to sit and write something now.

Back at the start of our journey, we had all sorts of airport delights to deal with.  Not least being in the nondescript surroundings of Prague airport at 5am.  5am is truly a miserable time to be awake and trying to function.  And Prague airport isn't exactly entertaining or comfortable.  

But when we got to Schipol in Amsterdam it was a little easier to cope, being that there were several eccentric little shops

 and more comfortable seating and even a library!  Woohoo!

The flight to Chicago was a battle of the mind.  I decided to cope with being boxed in in tightly packed seats for the 8.5 hour flight by sleeping for as much of the beginning of it as possible, to help me get on Chicago time.  This meant missing the main meal but was probably better for my tummy that way.  I watched the latest Muppet movie and was rather disappointed with it, but it helped to divide up the time and eventually we were on our descent and we got in a tiny bit ahead of schedule.

Getting through security was ok in the end, though we did have to wait in the long queue of 'scum', i.e. non-residents, for about 40 minutes.  And they've got all our fingerprints now.  So they can track us down.  Which is a bit of a worry considering we almost got ourselves arrested when we took photos in a supermarket in the suburbs of Illinois the next day.  

Two security guards (yes, two!) came over to us and said that some customers had been a bit concerned about why we were taking photos in a supermarket.  So my Mum jumped in before either of us could say anything, to reply, "Oh it's just that they're from the Czech Republic and they were amazed at how big everything is here and how much there is!  They were really surprised at how big the watermelons are and the rows and rows of chocolates."  To which the security guards, stunned by compliments about the abundance of America, said, "oh ok Ma'am" like little puppies lapping up praise and apologising for almost missing out on it.  I just stood there and smiled and inwardly thought how incredible it was that they had automatically taken everything my Mum had said at face-value.

So there you have it.  Paranoia and a failure to recognise irony is alive and well in the State of Illinois.  God bless America.

Prague-life

So time has been getting the better of me and not allowing me a moment to do anything creative and instead I've been caught up with learning, researching, adapting and implementing things online as well as dullidy-dull stuff like washing and, today's joy of joys - defrosting the fridge.  There is of course, never a good time to defrost the fridge, but if you're planning on taking almost a month off to go travelling in the US and you've run your supplies of food down to a bare minimum (not just due to trying not to have too much food leftover, but also due to running out of money) I guess, now's as good a time as any.

And so it is that I am purposely taking a moment to recall the little things I've been able to get up to over the last few weeks, because I felt a pang of homesickness as I walked back from Tesco today that I'll be leaving my little Prague life behind for quite a while.

Let's see...

There was the weekend I had tonnes of stuff to do but the architect and I managed to nip out into the centre for a couple of hours on a gloomy Saturday so we walked and walked and took in these sights:

And he laughed at me for taking photos because it was such a tourist thing to do.  But when there's this kind of weird stuff around, how can you NOT take a photo?

Then we had a couple of weeks of it starting to look like spring and there was this distinct change in the light in my kitchen that I had to just capture:

And that summer-yness carried on for a little while, just long enough to remind me how hard it'll be to conduct meetings in my hot little flat, and that at 4pm it's necessary to put the blinds down or the sun on my back will surely burn my skin.  And the Russian Countess came to visit and she took photos of me with my parasol and then we went out for dinner in the evening and sat in the company of a fish, because that was part of the décor:

(That is a fish in there - honest!)

And then, there were the lost days of periodness I mentioned in a previous post, with my emotional turmoil over watching 'Outnumbered' and feeling a bit nostalgic, followed by the last week or so of frantic organising.  Plus, there was the day I had my last stupid o'clock meeting on Vaclávské náměstí  so I took a photo of the big Europa Hotel as I left the building and headed to the street:

And then there was all the present-buying to do at the Easter market:

And now I'm into the 'packing and wrapping up presents' endgame that seems endless and far too much effort for the calibre of Easter presents bought.  

I received my own Easter present ahead of time in the post today and I must say I am enormously blessed:

What elegance!  What extravagance!  What yumminess....

And the other day I got a present of lovely yellow tulips, which brought the thought of spring that helped with the fact that the temperatures had gone back down to normal for spring and the clouds had come to hide the sun.

So all that remains now is to do aerobics, (to keep me fit and strong to cope with the stress of the long day of flying and hanging around in airports that awaits) finish my packing and attempt to make the most of my keyboard while I'm still here.  I actually got out the old Tori Amos sheet music last night and for the first time in my life got quite involved (and quite good at, I might, brazenly add) playing "Silent All These Years".  Which I suppose is quite appropriate seeing as I haven't written a proper full song in about two years now.  But I haven't exactly been 'silent' though, have I?