Chicago

Taking off from Jacksonville was a strange feeling. The place had come to feel almost like home. Even as I write, two weeks since leaving America, I still haven’t been away as long as I stayed in Jax, and at the beaches.

The plane headed through deteriorating weather and emerged out of the clouds near Lake Michigan. Chicago’s skyline is...impressive. The most dominating man made construction I have ever seen. Sure there are skyscrapers plural, but I use the singular to refer to the vast urban area that has built up on the shore of the lake. Usually everything looks small from a plane, but Downtown stood tall and intimidating, even more so against the flat water backdrop as the plane banked and approached O’Hare from the Northwest.

I hopped off the plane and headed Downtown. Great plan this- if you have to fly back to the UK or Europe for that matter, stop off for a few hours in your connecting city. Hopefully it tires you out a bit, you sleep on the overnight flight and arrive the next morning feeling...okay. The jet lag was certainly not as present as I was lead to believe it would be. I was tired, but travelling will do that for you!

I had travelled round parts of America and until the final plane journey no-one in this reportedly obese country had put anything in front of me that I had been unable to finish. Apart from Sushi. I tried that for the first time, (why not?) and I don’t want any more thank you. I prefer my food properly cooked to bring out the flavour. I tried to taste the differences but it was cold. Like hangover leftovers. Maybe it’s a culture difference because Brandon couldn’t get over my eating cold sausages (cooked...I’m not French hahaha! Oh... I might have started a rumour here). The pizza I ate in Chicago came close though. And it was only a small.

I wandered on my own about Downtown Chicago and made it to ‘The Oldest Bar’, of German origin, and sat with a ridiculously expensive bottle of average pale ale. Chicago was alright I suppose, but i needed company. I’m no good at doing the tourist thing on my own. This was a lonely end to my time here as I had no inclination to meet anyone. I was acutely aware that time was ticking for my flight home. Somewhere a plane was being ready that would carry me back to the land I had so fondly thought of during the first 3 days on the road. I don’t like wandering around London on my own with little purpose. I can wander hills and cliffs with nothing to do, but cities- no way, and Chicago, although mighty and foreign was really no different.

At ground level it is simply buildings, and they are nothing without people. Somewhere sit a bunch of folk, unconnected and unaware of each other, whose various lives and roles combine to promote this concrete leviathan. You need only to think of any song immortalising a city to understand what I see here. Recent popular artist have paid too much homage to New York in particular. I haven’t been. Maybe it has a special energy but I doubt it. In truth, it means something for those who love it, but it is just urbanisation promoted. The work is all human and the sight-seen buildings are nothing but shiny baubles on a planetary Jewel in the cosmos. Value- it comes from SELF.