Wednesday Sept 12th Adaire drove us to Normal Bloomington to get our Amtrak rail pass where we can hop on and off any time as long as we travel westbound. Unfortunately we left our passports behind as we didn't realise that we would need it to purchase the tickets. Before we came home to collect our passports and back to Bloomington again in the afternoon, Adaire showed us where Daniel's dad works when he is in Chicago. We met Hans, the manager of kongskilde i...

Sept 11th Tuesday We had our first cuppa of tea!! Ahhhh, thanks god, we both have been missing our typical british tea! :) Adaire have planned to take us to the Lake to do a spot of fishing. Before we left the house, Adaire kindly did bit of searching for the best way for us to do bit of exploring few places and getting across to Los Angeles. She found the Amtrak train tickets where we can hop on and off wherever we want on the route to LA within 30days. It w...

Sept 10th Monday Its bye bye to Chicago. We have found Chicago more laidback and relaxing, comparing to New York so we had a great time while we were there. Though, we were looking forward to Adaire's in Pontiac to experience the real american way of living. We left the hotel and made our way to the train station for 1.45pm. It was on time but unfortunately we didn't arrive to Pontiac till about a hour later! The train was so slow and kept stopping! It was ver...

Sunday Sept 9th We had our lie in as we weren't in a rush to get to the city as we planned to go up the Sear Tower from 5pm. We found the leaflet that offered the 2nd person 50% off the admission fee from 5pm onwards. First of all, we went to the train station to book our tickets to Pontiac for the next day. We got the discounts again due to our deafness, so more money saved for us! Then we just had a relaxing stroll around the Grant Park, having our lunch in ...

Saturday Sept 8th After looking at few leaflets at the hotel reception, we found out that the Chicago Zoo do free admissions so we decided to grab the chance! Its called Lincoln Park Zoo. We planned to go in good time but unfortunately for us, the part of our subway line was closed due to repairs which we didn't realise. It took longer than what we expected as there was too many stops on the replacement bus! Once we got off at the right station where the zoo ...