Come on babe why don't we paint the town... And all that jazz! Chicago we had arrived! Such an amazing city...so glad we included it in our journey across America. It has everything the Pier, lots of grass and parks to chill in plus the city life. A bit like London minus the busyness. Well walking the streets that is...driving on the other hand. To drive in Chicago is an experience to say the least. Crazy idiots!

We parked in the $24 car park! So friking expensive, and we walked along the Navy pier. It was a beautiful day...whoever called it the windy city was wrong. There was no wind, just sun sun sun! The atmosphere was awesome. Oktoberfest was on so there was some yodelling going on. We pretty much fell in love with the place instantly and really wanted to stay for the weekend. We had tried so hard to get a hotel but everywhere was booked or stupidly expensive. We were determined though so we sat down and had a cold beverage whilst searching hard for a motel to stay the weekend. Something had to go right for us...we'd had a nightmare two days. Guess what? Luck was just around the corner. We found a motel within budget. So Chicago had to prepare themselves for a weekend of Josie and Liz! Yay!!

We drove straight to the motel for a couple of hours to chill. And then decided to hit an Irish bar to watch the semi final of the rugby world cup...Wales vs Ireland. We watched half the game, there were a few welsh fans in there with us as well. It wasn't quite being back in Cardiff watching the game but it was the closest thing to home. Plus i got to watch my dream man mr shane williams score a try! Legend! We did get pretty sleepy and felt an early night was in order so that's what we did. I kept track of the game in bed and the Welsh sail through to the semis wooooo!

We woke up and pretty much spent most of the day in bed. We were in this amazing city and instead if exploring we spent most of the day in bed watching Bugs bunny and father of the bride whilst eating a dominos pizza...can you believe it haha. We were waiting to call the girlies to sing happy birthday to Fran...but it turned out the wifi didn't work at their end so that idea went out the window. Booooo!!

Well it was about 4ish and we finally decided to get ready for a long evening of partying. Woohoo! To save some dosh we walked to the  train station to catch the train into the city. The walk there was interesting...the men here are even worse than in Nashville. All we had was beep, beep, beep, guys yelling words and one even stopped to take a picture! What the hell. Me and Liz have started having stare offs with them. Some get really uncomfortable it's funny. But c'mon seriously? It's ridiculous, and extremely annoying!

A train and bus journey later the bar crawl began! It was nice to just chat and have a relaxing start to the evening in the sun. We ended up in a gay bar first, didn't realise until we got in there mind so bought a drink and carried on. It was soooo dead out that early so decided to pick and stick to one bar until it picked up.

The Cocktail bar was the chosen bar. It turned out to be pretty cool in there. We both got into watching the program 'Las vegas Jailhouse'. HILARIOUS! The people who get arrested are a bunch of gimps, and come up with the most outrageous stories. One women had crashed into someone whilst drink driving, her story was: 'The guy I happened to crash into was the guy that robbed me in 2005' haha...6 years ago and you think that story was going to get you out of drink driving? Think again love!  Haha. There were three screens above the bar...at points it was hard to choose what to watch. We got pretty into an ice hockey game too! Lots of fighting. Was awesome!

The next bar was dead but soooo cheap we stayed there for a while playing some pretty childish but fun games. The most entertaining was snog, marry and avoid! Heres one for you Danielle and Suz...stormy norm, Jack Larson and that creepy man from Santa Barbara? Skype us your answers haha!

We wanted a dance session so we hit one of the clubs after a few more bars. One club was full of people making out and grinding on each other and there's me and Liz dancing like gimps in the middle. Next club please!! Haha.

The last place was pretty cool and very busy! We were dancing for a little while and a guy comes up to Liz and starts talking. I didn't think she was going to strike a conversation in the middle of he dancefloor so I continued to dance to the side of them trying to make it look as if I was slightly involved haha. The conversation was getting a bit more serious so I backed away and stood at the bar until the talk was over. He'd said to Liz that him and her were good looking people and that they belong together or something along those lines! Soooo funny! He was full of himself!

We didn't last much longer in there and we tried to figure out how to get home. A guy was going passed where we were staying so we shared a cab with him. He gave us $20 for his share so it ended up being a pretty cheap ride home for us. Result! we got back and we decided to be little piggies and finish the crusts of the pizza we had left earlier. We were starving...it had been a long evening but soooooo much fun!

Early morning for us...checked out of motel 6 and drove down to lake Michigan. It apparently had great views. I do not like driving around this city! Public transport is the way forward here...everyone is crazy. Parking is also a nightmare, I just don't understand some of the signs. One says pay to park and another says tow area...and both signs are in the exactly the same place. Can you see why I get confused? It stressed me out! We parked up eventually and walked down to the lake.

The place is beautiful it's like a dreamland, it has literally got everything you could want in a place.  There's grass areas to picnic, its right on the beach and all of that is in front of the city skyline. Seriae...you don't get that in London! It's soooo crazy but amazing! I loved it.

We sat down for a bit to chill out and relax. Well the whole time we were sat there I had the most surreal experience. So we were sat on the grass on the beach when three loons to our right started singing 'we're all at one with the forest', proper hippys I think! To our left  we had a group of boys with fit bods playing frisby but in speedos(major turn off) and in front of us we had the lovely view of a group of old gay men, also in speedos but not only speedos, they were thong speedos! Seriously! That should not be allowed. I'm actually scarred for life! Ewwww!

The singing got a bit too much for us so we walked back to the car. The tune was stuck in our heads. Maybe that was their plan to get people hooked.  Can you imagine me and
Liz joining them in their circle of peace singing how we are one with the forest! We actually contemplated it but then came to our senses.  It was time to leave the big city. I actually love Chicago! It's been a blast. Maybe I will move here one day. Fingers crossed.

Time to head over to visit President Baahms at the Whitehouse. Yes we are on our way to Washington DC baby!

There's a looooonnnng drive ahead so I will have to love and leave you for a few days.

As they say in Chicago (the musical) 'Pop, six, squish, ahhahh, cicerro, lips***s!

Love love and all that jazz!

J.L xxxx