Toronto-Chicago

After four months abroad, I landed in Toronto on Friday, April 4. It was good to be home and see my family and friends. It felt like barely any time had passed since I left Toronto, but it also seemed so long ago that I was in Greece back in November-December. As anxious as I was to get out and everything and everyone I missed, my Singapore-to-London-to-Toronto jet lag left me pretty dazed and fighting sleep each night. But I pulled through; over the next few days, I caught up with friends and family and enjoyed the cool Toronto weather (finally warming up after the worst winter in years).

With one month left of my six month vacation, I was also excited to get to the Chicago-Louisiana leg of my journey that I'd planned with Jérôme. This would would take us to Chicago for almost two days, and then to Louisiana for an exploration of New Orleans and Cajun country for one week. From there Jérôme would return to Toronto and I'd carry on to Boston for Easter with my cousins. I was looking forward to this trip with my friend as perfect conclusion to my adventures abroad.

A real downtown

Jérôme and I flew to Chicago the morning of April 8. We landed at 10:30 and arrived at our Airbnb apartment in the Logan Square area just after noon. Once settled, we walked down Milwaukee Ave to Daman Ave, a trendy part of town packed with shops and restaurants. From there we were pointed to Big Star, a very popular taco restaurant and bar (busy even on a Tuesday afternoon). There we ate a variety of succulent tacos and sampled regional beers while chatting with the bartender and other people at the bar. For dessert, I enjoyed a delicious donut at a fancy donut shop across the street. Jérôme then bought a pair of fancy jeans and we took the train downtown to explore Chicago's famous architecture. I hadn't been to Chicago for years and had forgotten how expansive the downtown core is ("a real downtown" according to Jérôme). After a touring the major sights, we made our way back uptown for dinner and called it an early night. All in we covered about 10 km by foot, so we were happy to take a load off at the end of the day.

The next day we walked around the Polish district just north of our where we were staying, had lunch at the popular Revolution Brewery, and then made our way south to the Ukranian district ("Ukie town"). Our feet were sore from walking the day before and we likely covered another 10 km, so by the time we got back to our apartment to check-out, we were just looking forward to getting on our night train to New Orleans and sitting for a long while. At 5:00 pm we checked out of our apartment and headed downtown. Our train was not til later, so we had some food and a couple drinks at a bar near the train station. The bar - the Burger Joint - was very ordinary, but we were served by a lively bartender named April who had been to Toronto several times and was amused by our Canadian accents. We spent a fun time there with April, watching the Habs play the Blackhawks, and then made our way to the train station to catch our 8:00 pm train to the Big Easy.

On board I was annoyed to discover that we didn't have beds, just reclining seats (all overnight trains and busses I'd taken in India had beds and I mistakenly assumed that this train would be the same). I was worried that I wouldn't fall asleep, but it wasn't long before I was in dream land. Zzzz.

Taco heaven

Conquering the Sears Tower

Revolution Brewery

The Polish district

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