The Windy City

We’ve spent the last number of days in Chicago. Interestingly, Chicago was never intended to be on our trip, but it was a place that Conor had never seen (and wanted to see), so since it was just 1 additional flight to see it, we decided to make it our first stop. It also allowed us to visit some of Kadi's friends in Minneapolis.

For the first few days, to ease us gently into the backpacker lifestyle, we decided to get a hotel - so we got a nice cheap one with a great view (on the 18th floor in the centre of the city overlooking the river).

Unfortunately, the weather has been very "Irish" since we got here....it's been constantly cloudy with heavy rain at times. The tops of the skyscrapers have been in cloud the whole time.

However, this has't dampened our spirits. We have been just strolling around the city, checking out the sights and trying to come to terms with the fact that we don't have to go back to work any time soon. This really is taking a lot to get used to!! We've also been "chillaxing" in coffee shops and using the free Wifi (that seems to be everywhere) to plan upcoming stages of our trip.

We went up the Sears Tower yesterday when it looked like it was getting better. When we got to the top (1400ft), we were just at the base of the clouds. We had a nice view for a few minutes and then the cloud started to come down and it was a total white-out. (By the way, the elevators take some getting used to...they go so fast and so high, that your ears even pop as you go up and down in them).

So anyway, we woke up this morning and it is blue skies outside! So now we have to go out and retake all those photos we took in the cloud! :o

The view from our hotel room!