The Bell Family

Well, my first impressions of Chicago are quite good, The city is reasonably clean for a very large city, I guess my only gripe is how cold it is. It isn’t that the temp is that cold, but with the wind blowing, it will rip right through you.

Well, Friday Night I caught up with my New Zealand colleague and we decided to go for a walk and grab an authentic Chicago pizza. Man, it was more like a pie than a pizza and practically one slice filled you up. Due to some mix up, we ordered a large (to share) and initially we were brought out a medium size. The guy apologised and said they were cooking another large for us. Well, we ate two-thirds of the medium pizza and were extremely full. We told the waiter not to worry about the large as we couldn’t even finish the first pizza. We then decided to walk around a little. I found a Borders bookstore however the book I wanted wasn’t published yet. We then got lost and it took us a while to get to our motel. But deep down, I think we needed to do some walking! Anyway, we got back, I checked some email and stuff and then it was time to hit the sack.

After around 6 or so hours sleep, I woke up at 6:30, had some breakfast and then I caught up with my New Zealand mate again to do some more tourist stuff for the day. We visited a number of shops but the highlights for the day were:

• We visited the John Hancock building (see http://www.hancock-observatory.com/ for more information). Some of the cool things were:

• An elevator that traverses 94 floors in 40 seconds. It is one of the fastest elevators in the northern hemisphere. At top speed, it does something like 20 miles an hour.
• It isn’t the tallest building in Chicago, but it towers over all except one. See attached pictures.



Looking out from the 94th floor.





Proof that I was actually there



Looking up at the John Hancock Building.

• Went and watched a Baseball game. “Chicago White Sox” (http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=cws) vs “Kansas City Royals” (http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=kc).
• White Sox scored a home run hit on the first innings;
• White sox was up 2-0 after the first 3 or 4 innings;
• Royals scored 4 runs in a single innings;
• White Sox scored another home run in the 7^th or 8^th innings (a short fireworks display occurs after each home run hit);
• Bottom of the 9^th, the White Sox have a batter on 2^nd base. He’s sitting on ball 3, 2 strikes and the batter hits it enough for the guy to run home and tie up the match. This forces the game into another innings until the match is won.
• With 2 outs, the royals have the bases loaded and the last batter gets striked out. The White Sox win with a guy sitting on 2^nd base running home after the batter hits the ball to the outer field safely.
• Very exciting match and a nail biting finish.
• Of course, I had to do the American thing and eat a hot dog and drink beer at the game.
• After the game had concluded a great display of fireworks was then put on.



Me at the baseball game.





Some pictures of the game and fireworks.
Anyway, until next time, take it easy,

Jason.