I'm back in Cali

After a very eventful 8 days back home I am back in Los Angeles. It is almost bittersweet in the fact that it brings me closer to when I am home for a long while but sad because it felt my trip went way too fast.

My trip back home started immediately after a quick change at work being followed by bumper to bumper LA traffic. What should have taken 40 minutes to LAX took almost 2 hours. I preplanned my route by surveying my friends who have lived here for some time. The route I took was probably the best way but when you can stop in traffic long enough to paint your fingernails... that is some bad traffic.

Regardless I was going on about 5 hours of sleep but nonetheless made it on time to LAX in one piece. I flew to Chicago to meet my friend Jessica, another travel nurse I met while working at camp last summer and we explored the city together. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep on the plane.

I touched down in Chicago and had the sense that I was home, it looked, smelled, and felt like the midwest - I was happy. I immediately had to start planning my route to the hostel. After almost missing my stop (it's been forever since I've taken the L) and several wrong turns later I was there. Checking in wasn't bad and the room was nice. Jess and I started out with a mission - were going to find some deep dish pizza.

Rob suggested we go to Exchequer but wasn't sure where it was at, and everyone we asked didn't know where it was at but by some turn of luck we found it and it was only about 3 blocks from our hostel. Immediately when we walked in we saw they had pitchers of Rogue on special. We were in heaven. After engaging in some good beer, good food, and good company/conversation (the locals like to socialize!) we had our second mission - good live music.

I did some research before going to Chicago on Yelp! to find some good blues/jazz clubs in the Chicago area (accessible by public transportation of course). After reading reviews I came up with Kingston Mines - which sounded tourist-y but also sounded good. After finishing at Exchequer we go back to the hostel to try to find a closer jazz/blues club. We wound up getting a lot of people saying "Buddy Guy's" is the place for good jazz. As it so happened it was only a few blocks from our hostel as well.

Unfortunately Buddy Guy's was catering to a private event that looked like it was hosting cowboys and cops. Who knows? We thought about palming the bouncer some money and crashing the party but decided to see what other options there were. We wound up going to Kingston Mines in Lincoln Park. It was a $12 cover and you could tell it was the tourist place to go but oh well - it had live blues and alcohol. What more can you really ask for?

Mind you by this time I have been up for over 30 hours, after working 4 - 12 hour shifts, I am getting kind of sleepy and my feet hurt.

We decide to call it an early night at 1am and head back to the hostel so we could get an early start to our only day in Chicago. We go back to the hostel and I am out instantly - the beds at HI Chicago are SO comfortable. I slept like a baby.

We conquered Chicago the next day. I met up with an old friend from High School, Jennifer and we walked around a snow covered Grant Park to the Shedd Aquarium. Since Jess had never been to Chicago I tried giving her a picture of Chicago in the summer, how the park is always packed, how it looks during Lollapalooza, etc. Shedd Aquarium did not disappoint - especially for the student rate of $21 (if you ever read my blogs you realize how big of a complex I have with covers). We only had a good 3-ish hours there but it was enough. We walked on to go to the Willis (nee Sears) Tower to go check out the skywalk. The Hostel gave us tickets at a discounted rate of $11 - so worth it.

It was amazing up there. I had never been. The sky-deck was scary - for some reason I thought that holding onto the wall while stepping out onto the Plexiglas-glass would save my life if it gave way. Ha.

After Willis Tower we went to go eat at Giordano's - another famous Italian restaurant in Chicago. After that we stopped at the liquor store for some spirits for the train ride, retrieved our bags from the hostel, and cabbed it to Union Station to catch our train to St. Louis.

The Amtrak is definitely underrated. The seats were huge, comfortable, recline to almost supine position and ultra cheap between Chicago and St. Louis. The trip took relatively the same time as driving would have and by taking the train you don't have to worry about parking costs in Chicago (which downtown can be $100 for the weekend). Chicago has an amazing public transportation system that rivals NYC.

I slept the entire train ride, I was exhausted. We made it into St. Louis around 11pm.

Next blog - St. Louis tourists and Mardi Gras.

Love
L