The train journey actually took 25 hours because there was a delay during the evening! Slept for about 3 hours and then survived on coffee once the dining car opened at 6am. The lady next to me kept the reading light on most of the way so had a spotlight shining into my eyes…not the best thing for sleeping. At about 2am a US Border Patrol guard came onto the train and started asking the two people across the aisle from me if they had passports. It turns out they were from Mexico and the guy had been in the US 3 years and the girl did not have a passport at all so they were both in the US illegally. They were taken off the train. Felt really sorry for them because no doubt they would have spent that night in prison and then been deported after vigorous questioning. I arrived in Chicago at around 11am and decided that I didn't feel like trying to find my way on public transport considering I hadn't slept for two days. Had the luxury of a taxi to the hostel with a very rude taxi driver who was continuously hurling insults at the pedestrians crossing the road….thought this a little stupid considering most of the time the pedestrians had right of way! I arrived at the hostel and couldn't check in until 3pm so went to a place down the road and had some lunch and then went to the library up the road for a couple of hours. The hostel was great - absolutely massive so kept getting lost. I think the fact that they call ground floor first floor here gets me confused. To me first floor is the one above ground floor!! I woke up early due to the time difference and had my FREE breakfast in the hostel - absolutely fantastic - array of muffins, toast, cereal, orange juice and tea/coffee!! Filled up on that and then grabbed my yoghurt and banana for my packed lunch before heading out to see Chicago. I walked along Lakeshore Drive next to Lake Michigan which is absolutely beautiful. There are so many boats and yachts here - I think everyone in the city must own one! It started raining after a while so had to take shelter under a tree - was thinking to myself, "I look extremely dumb!" Walked to Navy Pier but was too early and nothing was going on so decided I'd take a walk up Illinois street to Michigan Street where they have the 'Magnificent Mile' - this is a mile of shops! At the end I paid to go up to the John Hancock Observatory where you have a 360degree view of Chicago and Lake Michigan. The views are absolutely fantastic but I would not like to be the people that clean those windows everyday as it is VERY high!! I then went to book myself onto a bicycle tour but it was full so ended up booking it for the next day. Went to Navy Pier and rode the ferris wheel and just took everything in. Everything is turning Halloween themed at the moment so they had Halloween decorations all over the pier and all the rides have turned into ghost this or freaky that and the pier is actually renamed 'Navy Fear' for the month of October! After walking for 9 hours I was very happy to return to the hostel and bomb out with a book for a couple of hours! I took a bike tour of Chicago with about 20 other people - was quite entertaining because we simply became a school of fish that took over the street - our guide kindly instructed us to wave and smile at any cars that didn't take to our liking. After this tour I have decided that Chicago is absolutely beautiful - the skyline is amazing and they even have beaches here on Lake Michigan. They bring in the sand from other places every summer so that people can have a beach on the lake. We were taken past the first playboy mansion which Hugh Hephner sold to the Chicago Arts Institution for $1 (his explanation was that he wanted to support the arts being an artist himself…) and it is now worth over $15million. The condo next door to it was for sale for $3.4million and has been empty for over a year! 'Old Town' is considered a historic site and has houses that survived the great fire in Chicago. One of the houses he showed us was a house that was built from wood that was burned in the fire and the woman who lives in it today claims she can still smell smoke from the fire...The Chicago Marathon started at 8am with 45,000 people entered. Entries closed in March this year and to participate in next year's marathon you are going to have to qualify because there are just too many people. Well today the marathon did not go well - the intense heat added to the humidity lead to them having to stop the whole thing. People died. All day there have been ambulances going up and down carting people to emergency - Chicago isn't a very happy place this afternoon. One lady in my room finished it but the other two were stopped after four hours of running. She said it was chaos because families who were expecting their runners at the finish line now had no idea where they were and if they were okay. I am off to Seattle on Tuesday where I am seeing Caitlin! Not quite sure what the plan is yet but no doubt hours will be spent catching up on the last few months. Tomorrow I'm going to go and see Lincoln Park Zoo which is FREE and maybe see a movie or something like that. Having been feeling so tired the last couple of days - I think the long train trip on top of non-stop walking and moving from place to place is taking it's toll on me now! Will be so good to be in one place for a while and settle down for a couple of weeks.