Chicago, Illinois 2

My new host Phil lived about 20 minutes ride away from Kelly. Phil had responded to my open Couch Surfing request only a couple of days after I had posted it on the Couch Surfing website. My post was made almost a month before my planned arrival in Chicago and because I knew finding a host in Chicago was going to problematic, I jumped on the offer.

Phil is a very friendly guy, a god-fearing christian from the deep south with traditional values and approaches to hospitality. He had only really started hosting a few weeks before my arrival, but was certainly making up for that in volume. In fact, I think he had something like 30 surfers in a month. By the time I left America, he had almost 100. My first night staying with him, he had one guest on the couch, one on a mattress, another on my air mattress and him on the floor. Despite all my efforts to convince him otherwise, he gave up his only room and bed to me. I managed to get this due to my long standing invitation into his home. This is just the kind of guy Phil was, offering all he had in the sake of being a good host, christian and human being.

The deep dish pizza.

Me, not being religious, thought I might be confronted by his zealous religiousness which was alluded to in his profile and messages. However at no point did he try and push any Christian agenda, which I was thankful for. The neighbourhood Phil lived in was quite nice - It wasn't upper-class but it was nothing like south Chicago. What surprised me is that people would say hello as they passed you on the footpath. Didn't expect that in a big city like Chicago, but everyone had told me it was a friendly city. The neighbourhood did have its fair share of drunks and weirdos, but way less than you would find in many of areas of Sydney. Phil's place was close to the red rail line, and the Chicago metro system was extremely straightforward to use.

This is what I actually look like when I eat.

The first day I had in Phil's place I walked down to the local Starbucks and basically blogged all day. Exciting eh? I had to majorly catch up on the blog, and I think I wrote about 6 posts that day - a massive effort. The reason I didn't want to spend so much time on the blog was that I was trying to avoid wasting all my precious little time in the US on the laptop. Blog posts take a long time to craft, finding the right photos and trying to make them at least slightly easy to read and entertaining. I thought I could spare one of the 6 or 7 days I had in Chicago by doing some blogging.

View from the Hancock Tower.

That night Kelly (my previous host) and I went out for deep dish pizza. Kelly recommended a very highly ranked place on Yelp, as she herself had not been there, meaning a new experience for us both. Apparently all visitors want to get deep dish in Chicago, which can make it kind of repetitive for a host. The pizza was way better than I was expecting, I guess I was thinking it would be something similar to a quiche but with cheese instead of egg. But rather it was just a really tasty, saucy pizza. The crust was amazing as well, very buttery and more like a pie crust than a pizza base.

Afterwards we both headed to the Hancock Tower for a cocktail. We both got long island ice teas, which cost about $20 plus tips. But the benefit is that you get to see the view of Chicago from almost the height of the observation deck plus a bonus alcoholic drink. The view was spectacular!

The next day I went and did an architecture tour of Chicago via a river boat. Pretty interesting stuff for nerds like me, they explained all the Modernism, Post-Modernism and Art Deco styles used in Chicago architecture.

Example of "Post Modern" architecture.

"The Chair" style of architecture. 

Look at the size of that building on the left!

Me on the architecture tour.

The Trump Tower. Yeah the hair guy.

After wandering around Chicago for a bit I met up with Lumi at her workplace downtown. We wandered around Millennium Park, and checked out some sculptures, art and the famous "Bean".

Animated faces would periodically
spit water from their mouths on this
sculpture.

Lumi and I at "The Bean".

More bean action.

We then headed down to Navy Pier, where normally there would be a whole bunch of retailers and sideshows, but since we were closing on winter, it was a bit dead.

Navy Pier and Lumi.

View from Navy Pier onto downtown.

Chicago sunset.

Lumi and I on Navy Pier.

The next day Sebastian and I went out to see some of Chicago together. Sebastian was one of Phil's other couch surfers, coming all the way from Singapore for a friend's wedding. We went all the way down to the "Field Museum", where there were exhibits on the Egyptians, dinosaurs, botany and gems.

Some of the dioramas were pretty amazing, these were constructed before zoos could hold animals from all over the planet, so the animals were hunted, killed, stuffed and put on display. Obviously this practice is frowned upon now, but back then it was the only way for regular people to see exotic animals. The museum also had one of the largest and most complete fossils of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the world. Pretty awesome stuff. 

Sebastian cooks me the food of his people.

Sebastian and the largest mammal to ever exist.
They told us we weren't allowed to take photos
in this exhibit but FUCK DA POLICE.

Nice dinosaur...

It ain't a complete museum visit without
you humping the leg of a Brachiosaurus.

After the museum we both wandered down the the planetarium, which was unfortunately closed due some almost certainly boring-ass documentary being made. We instead walked down to the "beach" and back through Millennium Park.

Fountain in Millennium Park.

Sebastian and I at the bean... Plus some douche-bag.

That night Phil prepared me a home-cooked meal. Phil had previously asked me what I wanted him to cook and I said meatloaf. Never had American meatloaf before, but I've seen it in a lot of American movies and TV! It was pretty good, served with a whole bunch of sides. Great stuff!