Due to the un-sociable hour that our flight arrived at Chicago we had to spend our fist night in America sleeping in the airport! We managed to settle down on a few chairs in a quiet area and catch a few hours sleep. Liann was well prepared with her eye mask, pillow and blanket! I got a job working for a construction company, made a beautiful water feature and befriended Cathrine Zeta Jones..... Oh wait wrong story!

Anyway, eventually we were moved on by a couple of police officers so were forced to wake up and face the big city. The 'L Train' took us right into Greektown, only a few short blocks walk to our hostel. Arriving there at about 8am we were too early to check in but they let us have some breakfast and leave our bags so we could go off and explore the city.

Not really knowing where we were going we headed for the tallest building on the skyline, The Sears Tower. Tired and weary from our journey we walked along the busy city street with a crick in our necks as we admired the huge buildings all around us. We were actually quite shocked at how quiet it felt. Don't get me wrong it was busy, but not noisy. No market stalls selling exotic fruit, no bus conductors shouting Managua-Managua-Managua at the top of their voice and the modern busses that didn't create plumes of black smoke as they pulled away.

It was a beautiful day and the sun shimmered of the glass panels of the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower) so we decided to take the tour and head up to the 103rd floor for a spectacular view over Chicago and lake Michigan! Still the tallest building in America it feels pretty un-nerving as your walk out into the glass viewing box. With nothing below your feet other than an inch of glass you can understand why some people only put one foot on at a time!

Not wanting to spend too much money, we next headed to the parks to walk around and to find 'The Cloud Gate'. The huge modern sculpture officially called The Cloud Gate has a much more fitting nickname, The Bean. The polished chrome kidney shaped object was surrounded by people taking interesting distorted photos of themselves and the city skyline, so we joined in.

Getting back to our hostel that evening we were able to check in to our separate dorms and finally have a shower after nearly 30 hours of travel and very little sleep. The hostel was pretty busy, mainly full of Irish students on a three month working holiday, all of them looking for work and accommodation.

Our visit to Chicago was always going to be short but it was cut a little shorter by the fact our second day was a washout. We ended up spending most of our day hiding from the weather in the Navy Pier and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

It was a short but pleasant visit to our first American destination but it was time to move on to St. Louis to see some family.