Day 24 - Food Tasting and Cultural Walk, River Cruise, Blue Man Group

With the first activity of the day starting at 11:30 we've conveniently got an hour or two of extra time to sleep in from last night.

I grab the train and head out to the suburbs of Bucktown/Wicker Park for a Food Tasting and Cultural Walking Tour.

This is a chance to get out of town into the neighbourhoods and see some of the local and popular food. The tour is capped at 16 people, it's a more mature and I'm going to throw out 'sophisticated' crowd, all from around the US or Canada, so I'm immediately the exotic one here and I enjoy sharing stories of my travels so far and how I ride to work on a kangaroo.

We visit six different food places as well as walking around the streets discussing architecture and the history of the area and the gentrification that has occurred.

First stop is Georges Hot Dogs, the number one rule of a Chicago Hot Dog is no ketchup. But put in everything else you can think of including a pickle on-top.

We then stop for a great iced-chocolate and home made marshmallow.

Next is a local grocer/deli for some antipasto.

Then onto a pizza restaurant which also houses a micro-brewery, we sample the beer. If you notice something strange with the number of beers I have. Well, being friendly with the old ducks paid off, two offer me theirs. I'm not exactly a beer drinker, but I also can't refuse alcohol.

This is a middle-eastern restaurant where we had some delicious falafel.

And finally some ice cream from shop iCream, the fascinating part of this shop is you can create your own. Pick the milk, flavours and add-ins like nutella etc. But wait you say, ice cream takes ages to set, you'd be waiting forever or coming back the next day. Introduce liquid nitrogen and you've now got instant ice cream, genius.

I then race back to town via the 'L', today's schedule is tight.

After making my way down the river, with minutes to spare I board the Little Lady boat for a river cruise, it is hosted by the Chicago Architecture Foundation and discusses the buildings on the city skyline whilst taking in the atmosphere of cruising through town.

Half way through the tour this fantastic smell came across the boat, evidently there is a chocolate factory not far from town and depending on weather conditions a lovely chocolaty small wafts across the city! Yum.

The following building is called Merchandise Mart, across the road from the hotel we stayed in, the building is so large it takes up an entire city block and has its own postcode.

Once back on dry land I grab a bite to eat and head out to the Blue Man Group show.

The show is a sensory overload, a theatrical experience. Three guys that don't talk, painted in blue banging drums with paint and many other unique and funny things. Highly recommended, unfortunately no photos, probably fortunate for my camera, I was in the front row and they provided ponchos for the first five rows!

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.

Day 22 - Black Heritage Trail, Vilna Shul, North End Freedom Trail, Little Italy, Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Babson College

This morning I head down to the now very familiar Green D line and catch the train into the city.

I start out behind the State House up on Beacon Hill for a walk known as the Black Heritage Trail. It is a tour of some of the more famous houses and monuments in the area related to the slavery of African American people and then the work towards building up the community with education etc.

The walk finishes at the Museum of African American History here in Boston which was previously the Abiel Smith School, the first public school for African American children.

Along the way I walk past a place called Vilna Shul, Boston's Center for Jewish Culture so stop in to take a look. It used to be a working synagogue but is now a museum.

The pews here were not from the original synagogue but from a near by African American church. A powerful moment, at one point in time slaves were sitting on these seats.

I then walk over to the north end to catch up with the second half of the Freedom trail that I'd walked on Sunday. I visit the home of Paul Revere as well as a park and monument dedicated to him. Further along is the Old North Church and the Copp's Hill Burying Ground.

Also in the north end is Little Italy, a perfect place to stop for lunch where I can't go past the Chicken Parmigiana which comes with a side of Spaghetti Bolognese. Desert is probably the biggest Cream Cannoli I've ever seen, it actually felt heavy from all the cream!

After lunch I trek over to the Museum of Fine Art, with everything from Egyptian relics to Modern.

Then around the corner is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Isabella was a very wealthy individual in the later years of her life and amassed a rather large collection of art and fine furniture. So large in fact that she decided to build a house/museum to hold it all here in Boston. In her will she requested that the house remain a museum and the placing and layout of items remain unchanged. It has been this way for some 86 years since her death. In 1990 the museum was broken into and a number of priceless pieces stolen including a Rembrandt. Due to the instructions in her will, the layout remains with several empty frames on walls in memory to the art that was once there. Unfortunately no photos allowed.

On arriving back at Babson with some daylight hours left, Tim and I go for a walk around campus. It's a lot larger than I expected. Babson College is a business school with all students either completing their undergraduate in business or if post graduate an MBA. That doesn't stop the students competing in a wide array of sports including the Ice Hockey rink we found! (Remember its the middle of summer and about 35 degrees today!)

We wander past a tree with some famous roots, it is an ancestor of the original Isaac Newton Tree