Day 23 - Fly to Chicago, Willis Tower SkyDeck, Giordano's Stuffed Pizza, House of Blues

With Vanessa's last exam for the semester this morning, Ness & Tim are then free and so will be joining my leg to Chicago! While Vanessa heads off to her exam, Tim and I stay back and finalise packing etc. We walk from Babson down to the commuter rail station, that's about a 20 minute brisk walk including an off the beaten track shortcut. No mean feat when we've got 30kg of luggage in tow, but it's the best way and we push though it and take turns wheeling my bag which seems for some reason to be getting heavier by the step! Making things more humorous is that it's quite a warm summer day, maybe low 30 degrees, we make it to the station dripping wet but feeling like we'd achieved the requisite exercise for the day or maybe month and I can now feel better about eating some more unhealthy food!

Meeting up with Vanessa at the airport I part ways and head to United while Ness & Tim go to JetBlue, the flights are departing about 7 minutes apart, so we're racing from Logan to O'Hare across North East America. On arriving in Chicago we catch up at the train station and make our way into the city and check into the hotel, soon after Tim and I find our first chance for a funny pose.

We walk down across the beautiful Chicago river and into the heart of the city to the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower SkyDeck.

Some 103 levels above the ground, we get an amazing view of the city and Lake Michigan, yes, that's right, the water next to the city reaching as far as the eye can see is not an ocean (we're in Central America) its a massive, massive lake!

The SkyDeck has undergone some renovations from the original building. They've added what they call 'The Ledge' which is a glass structure protruding from the building similar to what is in Eureka Tower in Melbourne. Now I've got a mild fear of heights so a structure designed solely of glass to maximise the view into the corners isn't exactly my idea of fun, but, man up, I'm on the other side of the world on holidays.

With a light lunch on the plane, by now we are all thinking food, food, food, so what better way to satisfy that craving than with some world famous deep dish pizza from Giordano's conveniently around the corner from Willis.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever seen anything so amazing. We ordered two 'small' size pizza's to share, check out the size of the things! Think pizza crossed with a lasagna crossed with a pie. Crusty pastry sides, pizza toppings, layered via pizza bases and cheese, cheese, cheese and probably some more cheese. Heart stopping, blood clotting cheese, instant diabetes amounts cheese.

So with that build up of crazy unhealthiness, it of course was delicious beyond description. Two slices would be enough to fill most people. We all quickly slip into some kind of food induced coma.

Needless to say we had a large amount of left-overs. Tim has the bright idea of getting takeaway packs and giving it to someone deserving on the street as we walk through the city where we find two worthy recipients who are much appreciative.

That leads me to the Chicago city, this place is beautiful. It's really clean for a major city, the river gracefully cuts through town and the trains run in a loop above the streets which gives it some charm and has been seen in countless movies. The night time photos don't do it justice, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Walking north through the city we head to the place called the 'House of Blues'.

We sit down for a drink and let our stomachs digest some more pizza. After a while a live band come on, I've never seen a blues band play live, great music.