We landed in Midway airport and caught the El (elevated train) uptown to Fullerton, then we had to walk a couple of blocks to the hostel. Unfortunately we were squashed into a carriage as a cubs game was on!! The hostel looked really nice, but we couldn't check ini for 3 hours as our room was not cleaned for ages. we headed to the supermarket in the middle of a thunderstorm which has been following us around America!!! That night we were accosted by a freaky stalker girl who stole one of Lau's cookies and followed us. We found out later that she had been screaming at losts of people demanding to be let into their rooms!! Oh Dear! Why do these things always happen to us!!

We were lucky to be in Chicago for the whole of The Taste of Chicago festival, which is a huge event that occurs this time every year. 75 Chicago restaurants have stalls with 4 of their best menu items which you can try in exchange for tickets. A small 'taste of' portion was 3 tickets and a normal size about 8. We spent a few hours debating over what to get before finally making a decision and having some delicious food!!

On the saturday night we headed to Navy Pierwhich has a ferris wheel, lots of restaurants and amusements. The pier heads out into Lake Michigan. We were lucky to get a perfect view of the fireworks, ehich hailed the beginning of the Independence Day celebrations. They were spectacular and the accompanying songs were classics. Although the red, white and blue colour theme did get a little bit too much!! It felt like a farewell from the US even though we still have 2 weeks left. We popped into the free Stained Glass Window museam, where there were some modern pieces which were really gorgeous, before getting the free trolley bus back to the El. There were 2 hilarious girls sitting next to Lau, who were trying to hold a conversation while constantly bickering!! ! It was so hard not to laugh at them!!

We visited numerous sights in Chicago including the Magnificent Mile, Sears Tower and the Tribune Tower - which has rocks from famous worldwide buildings at its base. These included stones from The Arc d'Triomphe, The White House, the Colloseaum and even from the moon!!! We als ovisited Bloomers chocolate factory and their shop and Chicago's Chinatown. Which turned out to be a bit of a let down after the other ones that we have visited.

Chicago has loads of water fountains in its parks. There was one Grant park and one in Millenium Park with faces of ordinary Chicagoan on the walls that the water was cascading down on. We also liked the Centennial Fountain which shoots across from one side of the river to the other, every hour for 10 minutes.

We spent the night of 3rd July in Grant Park watching the Macy's firework and music event. It was great to be sitting there with everyone in the park watching such a huge American celebration. On our way back to the hostel that night the El stopped suddenly due to an electrical fault. We were stuck in a carriage for half an hour before we set off on a different route. The rest of the people on our carriage were great fun, setting up their chairs and handing around the remains of their picnic!! Luckily for us we were able to get one of two underground routes back. Others weren't so lucky and had to wait for it to be fixed.

We spent the last couple of days in the parks near our hostel. Oz Park was very cool with a yellow brick road and statues of Dorothy, Toto, the Tinman and the Scarecrow. We also wandered through Lincoln Park to the beach on Lake Michigan which was so amazing. It felt like the sea until you realised that there was a lack of waves!! The lake is so huge, it's unbelievable. The view of the city from the beach is so good.

The last night we were updating our journal when a psycho man had a go at us over us being to long on the internet. This was really rude as he had only been waiting 20 minutes and each person is entitled to 30 minutes each. So we technically had 90 minutes all together!! He was really shouting at us and calling as really horrible names - which i won't go into!! It was a shame as we had a really brilliant time in Chicago and it was sad that that was how it ended.

Sorry photos haven't been updated for so long, we are trying but can't find anywhere with a connection. Will keep trying. Lots of love xxxxxxx