BLOG NUMBER FOUR | coldpapers

Row & SHARON'S STALKERS GUIDE TO CHICAGO..

Once upon a time, there was a woman called Row, who got on a jet and flew to Chicago. Here Follows her adventures whilst there.

DAY ONE

I arrived in O’Hare airport at around lunchtime, having travelled from Heathrow, that morning, on an eight hour flight.

After nearly an hour nervously queuing, or in a line as they say in the USA at immigration… it was make or break time. I had no reason to suspect I wouldn’t be granted access to the USA, but you have to complete a Visa Waiver before you can go to the USA, online now, and I worried slightly that maybe I hadn’t done it correctly. So when I was called to the desk I was a bit nervous. But the girl on the immigration desk was terminally distracted, talking, and shouting at her colleagues.. she shouted at me, whilst looking elsewhere..’ finger prints!’ then left the both… came back, barked ‘Photo’ and left the booth again… ! I could have been holding a machine gun, I doubt she would have noticed! But she let me into the country, so I suppose as far as I was concerned, it was all that mattered.

Service NOT included for this lady. Good job it wasn’t my first visit to the states or that might have given me QUITE the wrong impression.

I was meeting up with Sharon, a friend I had made online, from Coldplaying. com. We had never met before, but had emailed, PMd and chatted lots! I was very excited to finally actually be meeting her!

However Sharon’s flight was delayed, then cancelled and she didn’t get in at the time, or the terminal OR the airline she was supposed to arrive on.. which was somewhat confusing and concerning as I had no text, no phone, no email and no clue for about an hour after my arrival..

I was also completely aware of my Englishness.. I had to ask directions to the terminal I thought Sharon would arrive on. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I caught a little train, after lugging my luggage (can you say lugging your luggage?) up some escalators.. to what I assumed was the correct terminal. I had NO idea where arrivals were.. I must have trugged up and down the terminal 10 times, before I asked someone YET again for help. There is apparently NO information sections in America.. I just had to ask random officials. Who were always, always completely helpful. But I still had no clue where Sharon might arrive.

I kept, frustratingly getting whatsapps notifications coming into my phone, but couldn’t read them! My service provider for the USA, AT&T didn’t ever connect me properly to the internet. I read something about Sharon’s flights being changed, but couldn’t read it properly! I got about a third of all of them, and there were MANY, coming from Sharon and all the girls I talk to on facebook….. it was by this time around 3pm, and I was pretty tired, having been travelling now for around 10 hours. But I was expecting Sharon in at around 5.30! I just needed to know where she was arriving.. Getting a bit stressed out by now, I finally I gave up and phoned her. To be told her flight, terminal and arrival times had all changed and we decided it would probably be best if I got a taxi to the hotel as she wouldn’t be arriving now for another 4 hours.

I lugged my suitcase again up the escalator once more, and found what I thought was the taxi rank. It wasn’t. I asked someone finally, cringing at my English accent yet again, and they directed be BACK down the escalator! Finding a taxi I thought my troubles over. I confidently gave the name of the hotel to the driver, who asked me in broken English WHICH Crown Plaza Hotel I wanted! There were apparently TWO. I had no clue.. so Sharon got another phone call! We eventually worked it out, and the driver, after consulting a MAP, drove off.

We got stuck in what seemed endless traffic, on the way.. but I looked out the window, relaxing a bit and thought.. bloody hell, I’m in Freaking Chicago! Up until that point it hadn’t really sunk in. It was SO hot.. he had the windows open, we were driving fast and there was a nice breeze and it struck me how hot, just how wonderfully hot it was. When we got into traffic however he put the AC on shut up the windows… it was much cooler, but less.. Chicagoie..

Finally arriving at the hotel, $25 less well off.. it had been a long trip, I checked in, and discovered the strangeness of USA hotel key cards.. having to ask for help ONCE more on HOW I used the elevator…! You apparently need a key card IN the elevator or lift for us English people.. this was almost TOO much for me, I was SO tired at this point I just wanted to crash. I did get an odd look off the desk clerk. Stupid English woman!

Finally I made the haven of my room.. it was ARTIC inside.. the AC wacked up to minus 20.. well OK probably around 65!
I turned it off and lay on the bed.. then got up, and unpacked. Went on my balcony and took it all in.. I was in Chicago.. I had arrived!

I made tea (bliss) and plugged in my laptop, to take advantage of the free wifi offered by the hotel.. discovering quite quickly that wifi in this hotel was NOT the same as wifi in the rest of the world! ! It was intermittent at best…, Also tea in America is not proper tea.. but I made do.. making tea in a coffee pot… needs must.

My iphone also never did get a sensible connection, so in order to make or receive any calls, emails or whatsapps from my friends I had to do so via 4g.. I am still waiting on THAT bill!

Fast forward a little, I had a rest, had a shower, had a message or two on Facebook and Coldplaying.com.. telling the ‘Coldplaying’ world that I had arrived in Chicago.

Then around 7pm.. there was a knock on my door. It could ONLY be one person, so I ran to the door. And looked out. NOBODY was there, then I looked around the corner to find a giggling Sharon, FILMING me! LOL.. I gave her a hug and then discovered that I had locked myself out! Much hilarity followed and another trip down to the lobby to explain to the same clerk who already thought I was bonkers, that No I actually had NO ID, as I had locked myself out and my stuff IN!.. they eventually gave me a new key card and back to my room we went.

We got to know one another, although it felt just like we did already. There was no awkwardness or anything at all! We immediately felt like we’d known one another for years.

After posting a GIGANTIC photo on Coldplaying.com of ourselves to prove we had met and me being too tired to work out how to shrink it, we left it, laughing at how enormous it was, and went out to get something to eat. By this time it was 2am my time, so I was somewhat punch drunk and Sharon was she says, a little nervous, so she talked too much and I laughed at just about everything!

We could only seem to find Greek restaurants, so we did that.. We had a VERY fast service, by very attentive waiters! Who whipped things away from us the moment we’d finished! Quite annoying if I hadn’t been finding just about everything funny and Sharon even had a brief tug of war with one waiter over a plate of bread!

Meal over we made our way, only about 400 meters back to our Hotel. We stopped and took photos of Chicago by night, and ‘our house’ as we affectionately named our hotel.

Back in my room, this time my body saying to me, it’s THREE AM you know.. we put the 2003 DVD back stage into my laptop and sat down to drool, um watch it. I seem to recall being rather tired by this point and eventually we had to call it a night and go to bed.

Para-Para- Para transit...

Is THIS what

they mean by

Enoxification?

We also visited the Apple Store... mainly because

it was cool inside.. and then once inside we felt compelled to check Coldplaying.com and found our OWN huge photo, reposted about 20 times!

Fame at last!

Cheesecake done, we went back out into the scorching sun, to resume our exploring, the time now was about 3pm and I was already fully integrated into USA time. But did feel slightly weary after all our walking all day.

So we hailed our first cab of the week. Told him to take us to our hotel, which again caused issues as this cab driver also did NOT know where the hotel was. We managed to explain it was on Maddison… and we set off. The cab was incredibly hot.. he had AC but it appeared only to work in the front part of the cab where the barely human driver sat. Half way there we decided we wanted to go the United Centre were Coldplay were playing that evening and scope it out. So we explained this to the driver, and we eventually after some discussion arrived there.

Eventually we found a locked car park, with the tour buses and SUVs inside! Excited we took photos and at that moment I found bits of Coldplay confetti on the grass outside. Bear in mind that they had not yet PLAYED at this venue. So the confetti could ONLY have come from the tour buses. Much excitement ensued!

The United Center is the home of Basketball team, the Chicago Bulls, and Sharon stopped to pose with one member of the team!

We the decided that we needed to go back to our hotel and recover, eat, change and prepare for our gig.

Sharon called a cab… after a LONG wait for them to answer, they said they would send a cab, the area was pretty remote with nothing much passing, and we sat in the sun and cooked gently whilst we waited. Eventually a cab turned up and let someone out, so we grabbed it, as our own cab arrived behind us! His loss, he could have been quicker.

Back at base, we showered, changed and went out for dinner. Yet another Greek place! This was called the Pegasus I believe.. the waitress here in complete contrast to our Cheesecake girl was slightly dour.. having said that we were wearing our Gig gear and she probably thought we were slightly insane – she wasn’t wrong really!.

She did thaw after a while and we managed to get a smile out of her by the end of the night.

Bill paid we got out to get another taxi back to the united centre, flagging one down, we managed to get a ‘real’ character to my English eyes. He seemed to have stepped totally from a movie, with a deep, gravelly drawl, Sharon managed to get his life story out of him in the 20 minute trip back to the United Center.

We arrived… Sharon videoed us.. excitement! We were here! Coldplay night had arrived! We got into the gig, and walked around inside.. air con. I don’t know why but I didn’t expect it to be cool inside… but it was.. perfect temperature… which for me is quite a feat!

I bought three coldplay pins from the trade stand, one for me, one for Andy and one for Oli and we walked over to the Oxfam stand. Had our photos taken yet again and chatted to the guy dressed as a pea. We were SO excited. The Oxfam guys were so cool, so excited to see our Oxfam things written on our shirts.

I am sorry I can't remember the Pea guy's name, but he was also a Coldplayer and we met him later that night outside the gig, where the rest of the 'Stalkers' hung out.

We eventually found our seats and introduced ourselves to two girls behind, who were equally bonkers, which was good, and I had a scout around to see if I could see Jamie, who lives in Chicago and was due to be in our block. But I couldn’t see her.

We then decided to go for another walk around, see if we could meet a roadie and get upgraded! But sadly this didn’t happen. But our seats were fab anyway, so it really didn’t matter.

Back at our seats again and the girls behind took our photo. We took theirs to return the favour and then Charlie XCX (I think) came on. Earplugs in, we managed to enjoy her set.. Then Marina and the Diamonds came on, she also did a nice set and I commented to Sharon that the two support acts for the USA were so so much better as far as I am concerned than the ones we had in the Emirates in June. The earplugs helped, but it was actually tuneful!

Finally, almost TOO quickly to take in, 99 problems started and a cheer went up. Followed quickly by back to the future and then the boys were on! The gig went SO fast.. so so so fast! It was awesome as usual. The highlight being after God Put a Smile on Your face, Chris did a quick strip tease (well he took off his shirt, to the breathy sounds of 100’s of fan girls around the arena sighing) and changed his shirt on stage. Sharon filmed the entire thing… I am very happy to report. The videos from our gig are below, I have uploaded pasted them all together and uploaded them.

The gig went by far too fast.. and soon it was Every tear drop and then the gig was over. They took their bows and then it was over.

We made our way outside and attempted to find the tour buses again from earlier in the day, but it was so crowded and looked so different at night, that we initially got confused and went the wrong way. Eventually we found it, but people were being turned away.. you can’t go through.. we were told.

Then I thought.. I wonder what is down there.. there was a fenced off area, a bit higher than the surrounding area, we peered over and saw down below us BLACK SUVS.. OMG! The road to get out, came out the other side of the tour bus park so we nipped across, despite the looks we got.

Outside we waited along with some other die hard loonies, in the hope that Chris might deign to grace us with his presence. We made friends with some of the other Coldplayers, as we discovered we all were, and waited outside until about 12.30. Fortunately the threatening clouds held off and it was a very nice temperature. But eventuall we had to call it a night and get a cab back to the hotel. This time we found one quickly as they were all circling. Regretfully talking about the non-show of Chris… as we got back to the hotel. But we still had another night to try.
We chatted for a bit, and downloaded Sharons camera and my own to my laptop, but then had to call it a night and try to sleep.

DAY THREE

Started less sunny, I took photos from the balcony again. Couldn’t get enough of the amazing warm weather. It’s so magical to sun starved Brits, when we DO get sun it’s always like a sauna, so the dry warmth of Chicago just felt gorgeous.

This day started a little later, as poor Sharon had a bad night. So we let her have a bit of a sleep in.. I managed to Skype Andy, and he and I had a chat over 3000 miles. Which is quite incredible when you think about it.

We decided to skip breakfast today, and set out on foot again, along some of the same pavements we’d followed yesterday, hoping to find the Willis Tower, the second tallest building in the world.

After about an hour of not finding it.. we decided to grab a cab. Which was hilarious, as he practically drove us around the corner and deposited us outside the front entrance! The tip cost more than the fare!

We queued up for tickets and stood there chatting and trying to work out Sharon’s camera, showing one another photos from the gig and hoping tonight would be the night we met Mr Martin.

After quite a wait we made it to the top of the tower! Shoved in a tiny tin box, hurtling 103 floors up, took a whole minute to the top. But once up WHAT a view! Amazing..

They had kind of walk-in viewing platforms with glass floors, so you could stand apparently on nothing and look down below. I took a few pictures, and Sharon got someone to take our photo standing on nothing! Quite freaky.

Don't Look DOWN!

Then it was lunchtime. Chicago is famous for pizza, so off we went to find somewhere. We didn’t go far, and found a nice place almost across the street, it took then 45 minutes to cook them! They are SO thick, they call them Pizza pie. It was delicious, but incredibly filling. Between us we couldn’t finish a small sized one!

Lunch over we decided to grab a cab directly to the Navy Pier. We found one, eventually, and the trip there didn’t take very long. We got out, and were contemplating the pier when Sharon shouted! OMG I left my camera in the taxi! OH NO! the man had gone! Vanished before our eyes into the mess of taxis. I knew it had been a YELLOW cab as I had made a point of noticing it… you know it was all yellow? I had almost considered taking a photo of the inside cab showing the cab number, but didn’t! Sadly. Sharon called the cab company, but to no avail.. The camera was long gone.

But we made the best of it and started out along the Navy Pier, no idea why it’s called Navy, I am very bad at finding things out like that. Maybe the Navy used to use it?

More poles, and my seagul friend, who I met whilst Sharon was indisposded.

Memories of the Navy Pier include dancing and singing along to the sounds of Viva being played over the loudspeaker system.

It’s a long long strip of concrete, no boardwalk here, no wood, but it smells like piers the world over, a mix of popcorn, candy floss and warm burgers. Yum.

Half way along we stopped for an Italian ice, which is pretty much sorbet, but any other name.. but lots and lots of it! It gave me a humungous brain freeze, which hurt like heck! But I did eat quite a lot of it.

We got the end, and sat and looked at the lake, chatting (we did a lot of that).. in fact whenever I don’t mention it, take it as read, we were talking.

Then we walked back again and decided to go on a boat trip. We had several choices, the Sea dog, which was a speed boat type trip, but the line for that was enormous, so decided not to do that one.

Around this time the weather started to take a turn for the worse, it got cloudy, and I pointed out at the clouds on one side of the sky looked at little like the scene in Ghostbusters, where the stream of light comes out of the clouds. It was still very warm though, so I wasn’t too bothered. Sharon however is obsessed about storms and flying and started to get a bit worried about the next day’s flight back home. I tried to reassure her that I had flown in rain and storms a LOT, I mean if not NO planes would ever take off in England!

We decided on the River architecture cruise, an hour long trip around the rivers, whilst a man talked to us on a microphone NON STOP about all the buildings we passed, the history surrounding them and the type of building they were. It was pretty interesting, how many of you know that Chicago is called the Windy City not because it’s windy.. it is, but that’s not why it was dubbed the Windy City, apparently some politician, OK I didn’t listen that well, but some politician was trying to be rude about Chicago, saying that the policticans from Chicago talked too much!

As we cast off, the rain started. It was OK for about half way, and then Sharon couldn’t take it, (lightweight!) and we went down below to the bottom layer. Which was a good thing, as then most of the passengers started to join us, as the weather grew more wet. We finished the cruise underneath, and joined the rest of the passengers leaving and got wetter and wetter as we queued on the gangplank to get off.

More poles. Don't even ask!

We decided to go back to the hotel and get dry, eat and then go back to the United Center around 10.30 early in the hope that we would this time be lucky and see Chris..

We walked back towards the city centre in the rain, using our maps as rain bonnets. We joked that maybe we should be in little house on the prairie…

A little further along, wet through we grabbed yet another cab and it whisked us back to our hotel.

Where we had a bit of a chat in my room, then decided a quick shower each, followed by going out to dinner would be in order.. so Sharon went back to her room… then five minutes later came back for her shoes! She had gone down barefoot!

Showered, rested, and refreshed, we went out around 7 for dinner. The rain had stopped so we set off on foot again, aiming for a place we had been recommended by the hotel, we found a place that was a sort of sports bar, got seated, before decided the place was FAR too noisy, it echoed and we could hardly hear one another talk, and that was a necessity!.. So we thanked the waitress, who totally understood and left. We had to walk quite a distance before we found another, recommended to us by a kindly passer by who we stopped and asked. This turned out to be the best restaurant of the week. A German place, with nice beer, amazing food and the best bit (for me at least) NO arctic Air conditioning!

We sat, ate, drank and chilled before leaving, this time Sharon nearly forgot her umbrella! We got yet another cab back the hotel to change into our ‘stalkers’ outfits, which included our painted tshirts, bracelets, xylobands and bright laced shoed. Deciding at the last minute that we needed to make a sign for Chris, we went via Walgreens to get stationery. Including a large sharpie and a large YELLOW folder to use. We also bought Chris a large bar of chocolate in the hope that we might see him tonight.

Back at the hotel we made our sign, and had a bit of a melt down, over how funny we were! I don’t think I have laughed so much.. We wrote that we weren’t homeless and just had no dignity.. and it was SO incredibly funny… Sharon was rolling on the bed speechless at one point!!

Calling ANOTHER cab we got back to the United Center and took up our position by the back gates, feeling somewhat lonely as most of the rest of the ‘loonies’ were still IN the gig at this point. We were getting some odd looks from the security guards and both of us felt rather weird. We kept our ‘sign’ in our bag for a bit, and then almost before we knew it three SUV’s came out of the entrance, at speed, and swept off before our eyes. I managed to see through the glass to see someone sitting sideways, with what looked to be a hoodie on.. I hoped it wasn’t Chris.

Eventually others from the night before turned up, along with more hopefuls.. and we felt slightly less conspicuous at that point. The security guards were trying to get us to go, saying LOUDLY and obviously completely for our benefit.. ‘Well that’s them all gone then’… We all know from experience that that isn’t always the case and we kept hoping that it wasn’t.

Eventually another SUV came out, and Sharon and I held out our sign, giggling but this too swept past at speed and sped off into the distance.

Our Sign and the tour buses leaving......

The tour bus park, plus view of the let down fans....

We all stayed around sometime, when out of nowhere it seemed, a man approached us all from the other side of the wire fence. He introduced himself as a Coldplay roadie and said he worked for Miller. That all the band had gone and we should believe him. He was VERY believable, he was English, tall blond and we chatted to him for some time. He told us that the band were flying back to New York that night and had to be at the airport at a certain time for take off. Also that Chris often takes a helicopter to NY . That NY was the centre they had been using for the entire leg of the tour they were on now. We also gave him our bar of chocolate to give to Chris.. I hope he did!!

We since found out that the band stayed on another night in Chicago and indeed went bowling the next night! Sad but true. So he MIGHT have been fibbing to us? Andy the roadie, were you ???

So eventually we called it a night and sadly all left. I assumed that the person I had seen in the back of one of the first SUVs had been Chris, and he was now gone.

We came back in the taxi, and dispite our quite considerable disappointment, the hilarity of the night struck us. The cab driver had his windows wide open and it didn’t HELP my hair do.. We took photos (as you do) of each other and you can see from our general silliness that THIS is how we passed most of our trip.

A long sad night passed for both of us, for two reasons. The next day it was the day we flew home and our chances of meeting Chris were over.

DAY FOUR

Morning, I woke up early, sad that my holiday was over. Chicago had been brilliant. Perfect. Amazing. I had met the best friend I think I have ever made and now we had to go home. Pretty tough.

We had breakfast, pancakes.. because I just don’t have them here. Then sadly checked out of our hotel and got our last cab to the airport. We had to leave early as Sharon’s flight was a lot earlier than my own.

We arrived there around 11. Both checked in and managed to go through the same gate as one another. I managed to set off the alarms AGAIN.. fortunately they were so laid back they told me to take off my camera! Which I’d forgotten and put it through the scanner..

Once through we found where Sharon’s gate was and went off to find a place to sit and chill until such time as we needed to be at her gate.
The enormity of how short our time had been hit home and we sat in a sports bar, eating ‘trailer Chips’ between us and talked and talked.. Sharon asked a man sitting behind us to take our photo.. and it shows us, looking slightly wistful.

How we felt about leaving Chicago.

Eventually we went to find out if Sharon’s flight was close to being called, and she discovered her name being called as we arrived. It turned out her flight had been cancelled AGAIN.. and she was able to get a direct flight, again. It was calling in a short time, so we found another place to sit and wait.

Eventually Sharon got up to find out when the flight was leaving, to find that they were boarding! So we had a VERY hurried goodbye, and then she was gone.

I had a very long walk to my terminal. Fortunately I have a suitcase with wheels and I had ages before my flight, so I took my time. Finally I found my departure gate and parked myself down with my phone, my laptop and a cup of coffee.

ONCE MORE no wifi working in the airport, despite them advertising free wifi everywhere.. oh well.. I sat down, feeling more than a little tearful and started typing a VERY long email on my phone to Sharon. Knowing I couldn’t send it, but hoping it would help. It felt VERY lonely. There were two other people in the departure lounge with me, but they got up and left too shortly after that.

I must have sat there for half an hour or longer, feeling very sorry for myself, typing my goodbye really I suppose.

They decided to go and find somewhere to charge up my laptop for the flight home. It was around 2pm and my flight didn’t leave for another two hours. Luckily I found somewhere to plug in and spent an hour sorting through my videos of the band, and trying to paste them into Windows Live movie maker, whilst simultaneously charging the laptop and my phone.

It felt incredibly lonely to be cut off COMPLETELY from all internet, all friends and so far away..

After an hour charging, I unplugged and thought. Tea.. and chocolate. So I went and found a coffee shop, bought a large tea and a huge cookie. Then went round to the departure lounge and found they were calling my flight. Perfect timing. Although I had to leave most of my tea, as I couldn’t think of a way of taking it onboard with my suitcase and hand luggage without spilling it. So I drank as much as I could in the line, and then deposited it in a bin just before the plane entrance.

I had managed to choose a window seat for my flight home, which I was delighted about. I don’t like sitting in the middle much. I like to be able to see how far I have to fall if the plane takes a nosedive!

I had a French family sitting around me, mum and daughter in front, Dad next to me. Fortunately he was quite slight, and didn’t take up a lot of room. My leg room was better in this seat also and I was able to tuck my hand luggage down the side of the seat in front, rather than under the seat, so I had space.

I tucked myself in, blanket, blow up pillow and felt quite sleepy. It was around 4.15 when we took off. And I think I did doze off once we had taken off. Although the lights were on, and they served dinner pretty much straight away.

The flight seemed fairly quick being an hour shorter than the outward journey. HOW does that happen? Do they do loops on the way out? Or just fly slower? I managed to get some napping in, it was dark, they turned off the cabin lights and it did feel like night. Around 6.15 UK time about an hour before landing, they served breakfast and I woke up, pulled up my blind and saw the most incredible pink fluffy clouds as we flew into the sunrise over Europe to the sound of Coldplay in my ears..

As we descended I clearly saw the tip of Ireland, over a blue ocean and knew I was almost home again. Listening to Cemeteries of London as we flew overhead, quite an awesome thing to behold.

We landed pretty much on time and Andy and Oli were in the arrivals lounge to meet me. It was lovely to see them again, it felt like I had been away much longer than four days. And also nice to have my internet back!

To sum up. THE best trip! The best.. I had so much fun, so many laughs, saw so many great things and all of this made so because of the awesome best friend I have made. Sharon and I hit it off from the moment we met, in fact before we met. It felt as if we had known one another for years, I am so happy to have made SUCH a good friend, but a little sad also as we live so far away so many (moles) miles apart. Thank you Sharon for making it all possible, I can’t think of anyone I would rather spend four mad, amazing, funny, fun and perfect few days with. Until the next time.

or how to fail at stalking...

August 5th - 8th 2012

DAY TWO.

PERFECT DAY

Then we came to the Cheesecake Factory… what else could we do, but go inside, and order cheesecake? We had had a big breakfast, and no lunch, so cheesecake it was. Hurrah. Our waitress was fabulous! What a nice girl. It made our day better, if that was possible.

The day started for me around 6.30am… But I had slept, I felt better and it, drawing back the curtains to my room, appeared to be another beautiful day

Tea, laptop and whatsapps later, I got a message via whatsapp, from Sharon the floor below me, that she was awake and HUNGRY!

We giggled (lots of giggling went on the entire trip) that we were in the same hotel and STILL whatsapping one another.
I went down to her room, via the lobby again, as I still couldn’t work out this stupid key card thing! And we both set off to eat breakfast in the hotel.

We had a cooked breakfast with VERY crispy bacon. But it filled us up, and we were ready for the day.

We set off around 9am towards what we thought would be the city centre, walking along wide, clean sunny pavements or sidewalks, the weather was amazing and I apologise in advance for the amazings, lovelys and awesomes I use I the next few paragraphs! I took thousands of photos, and we saw so much cool stuff. The buildings are huge, the space the weather the whole thing was wonderful. A short way along we stopped and I got a coffee, as it is an essential part of any American trip that you get a coffee to go. I had a caramel latte. The coffee shop was home to a black board where you were encouraged to leave your mark. Sharon wrote COLDPLAY, so I added a heart and a spiral.. and we got our coffee to go.

A little bit further on and we came to Millenium Park. The home of the famous ‘bean’ a huge reflective, well bean! Which was awesome to behold, hot to stand in front of, and a mecca for tourists. We took our pictures and Sharon, persuaded someone to take our photo together. Probably my favourite photo of the week. There was also a massive block fountain with lots of children in bathing costumes playing in. I took off my shoes and paddled in.. holding my coffee.. it was hot, it was beautiful, it was just amazing. The whole area is gorgeous.

We also took photos of lamp posts being cuddled or hugged. Some of you know why!

We left Millenium park after a while and continued in what we thought might be the direction of the Navy Pier. We got a bit further when we realised we were probably a bit far out to reach it on foot, but we could see the lake (which is really a large inland sea! You can’t see the other side, that’s how big it is) but we couldn’t work out how to get down to it. Eventually we asked directions, and found our own way down, under an underpass, to a marina. It reminded me of Dexter… all those beautiful boats, must hide some body parts surely.

After a short sit down, we made our way along the banks of the river, back towards the city. By this time a little thirsty. It was still extremely hot and sunny, and the trees over the river were lovely. A little further down we found a riverside café, selling drinks, and we got a coke each and took it to sit at a table overlooking the river. Bliss.. there was a strong breeze and it was just perfect. Sharon and I both knew it by then. This day was magical.

I sent a photo to friends via whatsapp, having to switch my 4g on and off to do so… and let Andy know I was having a nice day. It seemed odd to think it was barely lunchtime where I was, and he was almost ending his day at home.

Once we had had our sit, and our drinks we made our way further along the river to a bridge, where we could go back up to the city. Standing on the bridge we both took each others photos, dodging what seemed to be 100’s of pedestrians streaming over it.
Sharon doesn’t like this photo, I do, but I won’t post it because she doesn’t.

A little further on, we were walking in a beautiful street, so WIDE, so clean so shiny, and we came upon a cow, with red spots half way up a wall, not a real cow obviously, but maybe she was the cow who started the fire in Chicago? I don’t know. Oliver says clearly she is a LADYCOW, because of her spots.

We got our photo taken again, with another lamp post and then sat under a tree, gazing at the sun peering through the branches. Sharon asked me how to say Butterfly.. as she thinks I say it strangely. Then she filmed me doing it. The result is in the video.

Italian Ice.. VERY VERY

VERY

COLD!!!!!!!

We passed MANY and varied references to Coldplay, and being the good fan girls we are, we took photographic evidence!