Where You Gonna Go With a Heart That Gone?

Time: 17:54

Location: Chicago, IL

I got home at 4am last night which is not a good idea when you are still trying to get over jetlag. I'm hanging onto about four hours of sleep, a nasty case of PMS and sore legs. Unlucky.

My second day was pretty chilled out. During the day, I woke up late, unpacked all of my stuff and reorganised everything. I was picked up at around 9pm and we went to The Chicago Diner which blew my mind. We had a fake-steak sub kinda thing and I had a delicious vegan shake - Choc Chip Cookie Dough. Yep, you read correctly. We went down to the lake after dinner and it tripped me out because you can't differentiate between sky and lake at night so it just seems like you're staring into nothing.

I visited the Art Institute of Chicago last Thursday and it was pretty damn cool. It's gigantic and there are all these random doors and hallways that lead to different exhibits. Sometimes I think I don't appreciate art as much as I should though. I mean, I can look at artworks and think "Wow, someone must have put a lot of effort into that" but I never feel a specific closeness to visual art. I noticed that I constantly look for the description of the artwork before looking at it first so maybe I'm just more attracted to words.

I also went to Millennium Park and watched a lovely little jazz band in the beautiful sun. They have live music everyday from midday until 4pm so that's pretty cool and handy when you have nothing better to do. I took a stroll down The Magnificent Mile which is weird as hell because it's all high-end fashion stores with huge windows and it's exactly like what you would picture when you hear the name. I walked down to the Chicago River and found a nice place in the shade to sit and watch the boats packed with tourists pass by.

Last Friday I figured I'd give public transport a shot since I'll be needing to do so real soon anyway. Let me just say that the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) shits all over CityRail. The trains aren't exactly fancy or have cool flippy seats like the ones in Sydney but at least they're bloody reliable, which I think should come first when designing a public transport system. I hopped on the 155 bus down Devon (main road) and got off at Loyola station. I then caught the "El" to downtown Chicago. I wandered around aimlessly for hours, walking all the way down Chicago Avenue to the West Loop. I wanted to go to Wicker Park to visit some hipsters but I underestimated the distance. I just ended up thirsty and lost. I got onto the Blue Line, transfered at Jackson and went back Loyola. I ended up eating samosas on Devon. Two samosas and a can of soft drink cost me two dollars and fifty fucking cents. How awesome is that?

Anyway, on Saturday I ended up in Naperville which was a bit of a strange experience. I was invited along by my host family. The first house we went to had a huge basement that was used for gamelan practice. So I sat there and watched them practice for a few hours. I never realised how loud gamelan ensembles could get when amplified by the acoustic structure of a basement like that.

The next house also had a huge basement but this one was used as a prayer space. We did iftar together which was nice and familiar, even though I could only eat like three things. I was introduced to everyone by my "host mother" as "My daughter... who was born in Australia... but is Indonesian... so she can understand Bahasa... but can't reply very well" so I ended up just getting teased all night about it. Indonesian communities all over the world are exactly the same - the way it takes half an hour to say bye, the way the ladies pull out the latest trends from their bags to sell, the way people yell five centimetres from your face when they're excited to meet you. I almost forgot I was in the States.

Yesterday, however, reminded me that I was in the States. I caught the 155 at around 11:30am to Morse. We checked out the farmers market where I bought a yummy olive sourdough loaf then walked to Granville where we hopped on the El to Fullerton. We stopped at the Bourgeois Pig to get some lunch "to go" and walked over to Lincoln Park zoo. We got tamarind ice blocks too! From the zoo, we went down to the lake and walked alongside it all the way to Navy Pier. I'm not sure how long the walk was exactly but.... it was long. I spotted an Aussie there. "How did you know he was Aussie?" you might be asking. Well, he was wearing a Prom Queen t-shirt and was very typically "hardcore", as depressing as that is.

So we somehow ended up watching Scott Pilgrim vs. the World at a cinema downtown. It seems the audience enjoyed it a lot more than the audience I watched it amongst back home. I don't know. Just an observation. Moving on... we walked around for a while and sat by the river and then it was off to Belmont at three in the morning to eat at the Pick Me Up Cafe. There I had the most amazing vegan cheese fries and buffalo tofu. It was just so tasty and the cheese on the fries did not taste vegan at all. Oh man, I'm going back there soon. I'm pretty sure Americans love flavour because everything I've eaten so far has been far from bland. Food is one of the most thrilling aspects about Chicago, especially if you're vegan.

We caught the train back to Loyola and I ended up getting home at 4am as previously mentioned. I tiptoed into the house trying not to wake everyone up. As soon as I jumped into bed, they got out of theirs for sahur. Perfect timing.

Right, that was one hell of a long post. Tomorrow I think I'll go to Argyle and hit up Little Saigon for some Banh Mi Chay and Asian groceries. I've not been to a show since I've been here so I'll be scoping out the interwebz and my secret sources to find out about some.

Be good, friends. Talk soon.

-S