The windy city... Chicago!

The old gangster city.... we were looking forward to Chicago!

We arrived a little later than anticipated - due the amount of snow that the east coast had received a lot of bus journeys were delayed or worse still cancelled. We counted ourselves very lucky to have escaped in time!

The photo below is one of the first we took of the city and it shows Chicago just as I had imagined, with soft brown lighting like in the old gangster movies...

After dropping our bags off at the hostel we had a walk around the city, visiting Grant Park Fountain and Millenium Park along the way. The fountain is actually one of the largest in the world!

We walked past the Sears Tower, the Tribune Tower, an impressive Gothic style building, Magnificant Mile and a number of statues on our journey.

We heard there were some impressive Christmas celebrations happening on the Navy Pier so we went to check them out. It turned out to be a cool place, a big inside winter wonderland. There was also a little museum where we learnt about the history of the Chicago police force and the city's drug problems which was very informative. I was hoping to learn more about Chicago's gangster history however the city does seem to carry on pretending it didn't happen, with no tours of notorious gangster spots or anything much to our surprise.

On the way back we went to visit the theatre where the notorious gangster John Dillinger was shot dead by the FBI. The recent film 'Public Enemies' was based on John Dillinger so Nic was also very excited that she was in the same street where Johnny Depp had recently been!

On our way to the Zoo the following day we found a frozen lake, however, Nic thought it was snow covered grass and went and jumped on!!! Luckily she was okay!

We saw some amzing animals and some of them even came over to pose for the camera like Mr Lion below! He was one chilled out big cat!

The zoo also had some awesome ice sculptures and below are my 2 favourites...

We also saw this crazy hippo, he seemed to think he was swimming away but the little fella didn't realise there was a big pane of glass in front of him. He kept going up for air every now and then and looking like he should be in a different place! The fish looked like they were having a good feast on him!

The zoo was a great day out and as it was free it was that much better!!

Final stop was Lake Michigan and it was quality, the photo below is my favourite from Chicago, very atmospheric.

Chicago was a great place, it wasn't as windy as expected but it was still super cold! Atlanta is up next on our flying tour of America and Nic has told me that i'm in for a treat!

written by

SupandNic on January 6, 2010 from Chicago, United States

from the travel blog: Sup and Nic's World Tour!

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