Day 43 - Chicago

Rainy Chicago!
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Oh my god, I have re-entered civilisation!!! I had an emotional moment yesterday evening when I went out for a wander. I firstly passed a champagne store, which cheered me greatly and then the supermarket I went to to get some dinner not only sold 25 different types of houmous but also San Pellegrino. I feel like I have been reborn! You don’t realise how much you miss certain things until you see them again! However, I was brought back down to earth when I had to open the mozzarella I had bought with a paid of tweezers as I had no knife or scissors. Not quite normality yet then! But a start… This morning I woke up to rain. A lot of rain. So, I went back to bed again. When I awoke again, it was still raining, just as much. After pondering what to do for a while, having a read of my guidebook and not coming up with much that didn’t involve at least a long walk in the rain I decided I should head out anyway. I left my hotel room for a grand total of 1 hour to get some lunch before deciding that it was just horrendously wet. Within 2 minutes of leaving my hotel I was absolutely soaked. Thankfully I had packed my waterproof jacket but it really didn’t do too much! Funnily enough the weather forecast for today was a couple of showers maybe, in the late afternoon. The weather forecasts here seem about as reliable as at home! Near my hotel is a massive McDonalds. It is huge and is a McDonalds ‘bistro’. It was a cross between a McDonalds and a Starbucks really with jazz music, Barcelona and Eames chairs and lots of salads. So I had lunch there which seemed a bit odd. It wasn’t that bad – if all McDonalds were like this one then I might be tempted to go there more often! On a more dour note, after watching a LOT of news on TV today as there isn’t much else to do, I discovered that 2 United flights, one to Chicago and one from Chicago were forced to make emergency landings yesterday due to bomb threats. Thank goodness it wasn’t my flight! Another flight has made an emergency landing today too because of another threat. Fingers crossed my remaining flights are uneventful. Rather worrying though. If the weather improves later then I will venture out again but I have a feeling that the rain is going to be here all day. The weather tomorrow is meant to be much nicer – 27 degrees and sunny but who knows! Oh on another note, am only 6 hours behind the UK now as I am in Central time – woo hoo!

Blurry photos but my hands were so wet the camera kept slipping!
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Distance travelled today – 0 miles.

Distance travelled today - 0 miles

Bearwatch – definitely 0.