Elvis Night
After a great nights sleep in the huge bed we got up at about 10 and Michael picked us all up and kindly took us to his house so we could do some laundry, just in the knick of time as I was pretty much out of underwear by this point, our last load of washing having been dome in Fairbanks!! Next Michael and Ali had some jobs to do so they dropped us at a shop called Target, kind of like TJ Hughes, where Andy bought some hair clippers as he was starting to look like a bear and a towel to replace the one he'd left somewhere!! After trying on some clothes trying to work out what size I am in the US ( anywhere between a 3 and an 11 apparently!) Michael came to pick us up again. We then went to a fast food place called Sonic where not only is it a drive through, but also a walk through!! You dont go inside at all, but call your order through a speaker then sit at an outside table until they bring your food out on rollerblades (the staff not the food!)!! We had toasted, bacon and cheese burgers with tater tots (yummy mini hash browns) and limeade. It was now getting on for 3pm and time to head into the city for my 1st baseball game!! As Ali wasnt going to see Andy until after his birthday in October she bought us tickets to go with her and Michael to see the White Sox play the Texas Rangers as an early present!! The game started at 7 and it took us best part of 3 hours to travel the 30 miles to the middle of Chicago where the stadium is!! We got a lift the last couple of miles with friends of Michael's, Janie and Gary to save on parking and got there at about 6pm. Some people get there really early, like 11am and make a day of it in a set aside car park with BBQ's, music and beer...they are called tailgaters, I was a bit confused by the term until Gary explained it lol!! Anyway, baseball games seem mostly to have a theme and tonights was Elvis!! So as we walked around there were various Elvis lookalikes, a well known impersonator on stage singing, a lady dressed as Elvis's last sandwich and a giant blown up Elvis head!! Rather surreal, but we're starting to get used to the strange things that go on in America! After touring the stadium and the multitudes of food and drink stands (sooo much alcohol on sale!!) we found our seats and settled down to watch the game. Andy explained the rules as we watched and it became clear that these boys actually earn their huge wages, unlike our footballers back home. They play about 150/180 games a year and each game is a good 3 hours long at least, if no-one has won by the end of the ninth inning, they just keep playing till someone does, so potentially the game could go on all night!! During the game people go round selling drinks and snacks through the stands (we had strawberry margaritas :)) the huge monitors around the stadium show the current players statistics and general information, adverts and peoples messages such as happy birthday etc. This is accompanied by jingles for each player, announcements and music, yet no real commentary which I found interesting! All in all there are a lot of distractions from the actual game itself which was a little strange but I still totally enjoyed it. About half way through we got up to take a wander round and get some food, nachos and hotdogs, traditional baseball food so I'm told, before heading back to our seats. No sooner had we sat down than a foul ball (of which there were literally dozens throughout the game) came flying through the air towards us. I had the hotdogs on my lap so decided I wouldnt join in the mad scramble for the ball that seems to accompany such events so sat there waiting for someone around us to catch it...no, it hit me smack on the knee then rolled off down the line where a guy excitedly picked it up, exclaiming how he'd been to hundreds of games and this was the 1st ball he'd caught...well picked up, while I sat there thinking how bloody typical that was that the only one to come our way and not only could I not catch it due to hotdogs but it had to attack me too!! Meh!! Oh well, a story to tell from my 1st game lol! The rest of the game passed without further incident and although 'our' team, the White Sox lost 4-7 I still thoroughly enjoyed it. After the game 'Elvis' came out in an old classic car to sing, show girls from Las Vegas performed and there was an awesome display of fireworks to finish off the night. This however wasn't the end of the night for us...after getting changed, Gary and Janie kindly let us change at theirs, Michael dropped me and Andy off at a club called Excaliber in the centre of town. Once we found out that the Chicago Salsa Congress was in town we had to get tickets to some of the parties!! Unfortunately Sat night was sold out but we got them for Fri and Sun :) So as we turned up we caught the last 3 performance shows, there must have been at least an hours worth, before the party really got started! Having not danced since Fairbanks we were a little rusty and it took me a couple of hours to really start feeling back on form again, especially with spins, my balance was all over the place to begin with :( Luckily though there were some amazing dancers and by 2am we were having a fantastic time. The club was upstairs with 2 rooms, a salsa and a bachata with a further floor above this with a balcony where you could watch the dancing from. We mainly danced On1 although I was frequently asked which I would like to dance on, about half of my dances could have been On2 if I'd have wanted! The great thing though was how readily people asked you to dance, no sooner had I finished a dance and made my way to the edge of the floor than I was whisked on to it again!! Andy was not so lucky, it seems that in Chicago the men do ALL the asking as he wasn't asked to dance once! However apart from the same issue as we get everywhere of being bumped into and people not looking where they're going, he had some brilliant dances and really enjoyed the night. The music finished shortly after 3.30 and feeling exhausted but with big smiles we left to go and get a drink from MacDonald's and cool down before making our way back to the hotel. This wasn't as easy as we'd hoped, being Chicago on a Friday we thought it best to get a taxi to the train station a couple of miles away where we then boarded the blue line which took us all the way to the airport. So far so good, the taxi was $6 and the train $ 2.25 each. The idea of going to the airport was that there were bound to be taxis there to get us to the hotel and they have fixed prices which should have been about $17. However, it was now 5am and they wanted $45!! We decided to find an alternative but this wasn't aided by the fact that although an international airport, O'Hare apparently pretty much shuts down at night so we were unable to find any help to find a way back to the hotel. After trawling through brochures looking for train/bus timetables we eventually found a bus that should get us there. We went to the platform it was going from but it was the only one without a bus! A security guard outside having a cigarette saw us looking lost and explained that the bus stop had moved and we'd have to get back on the train, go back a stop, cross the road and pick it up there...nice that the noticeboards etc couldn't tell us this!! So we duly got back on the train etc and arrived at the bus stop with about 10 minutes to wait. At 6.30 we got on the bus and half hour later with some advice from the driver found ourselves with just a five minute walk to our bed!! We said goodnight to Ali as her and Michael went off for the day and crawled finally into bed.
At this point I have to say that we've found American people to be very friendly and helpful, often putting themselves out to assist in whatever way they can. The problem seems to lie in the administration...its as if they either dont want or dont expect foreigners (this often includes people from other parts of America) to visit, basically to do, find or even pay for anything you have to live there. For example petrol station pay pumps asking for your 5 digit postcode, mobile phone companies needing a local address to buy a pay as you go SIM, supermarkets only accepting American Express, any event or place of interest not being advertised or signposted, because of course everyone attending is from that area and knows exactly where everything is?! I mean come on...can you imagine being in London and there not being adverts for events currently on, or no signs to Buckingham Palace or the London Eye?!! Its just weird and a little bit annoying, we've found it everywhere we've been so far, luckily as I've already mentioned, the people themselves really are so helpful!