23rd November, 23:00

Well that was frustrating, after exploring Chicago up State Street & down Michigan Avenue, which was awesome, blue skies and all, I came back to check in, only to find Sta Travel had failed to pay for my hostel. And so I won the international award for longest sentance. After two hours of waiting it was all sorted out, I showered and cruised down to Jimmy John's or something, that made really nice sandwiches and was scaring away all the custom with heavy death metal playing. After that I went back and chilled at the hostel as I was bushwacked.

Hostel is EXTREMELY nice, very clean, like all of chicago and people here are quite friendly. In a 10 person dorm room with some nice peeps. Chatted to a guy from South Korea for a while, he's 27 and studying a year abroad here (in Microbiology). In South Korea they have to do military service for 2 years, which explains his age. He was stationed as a medic in West Tameria in the UN peace keeping force with people from Australia, Portugal, Japan etc for 6 months. Amazing difference in lives we have. He supports Liverpool, as apparently the premiership is big over there, more so than their own league.

Also met a guy called Adam (what a stupid name) from Ohio who is just here for weekend and majors in Digital Design. He was cool but also tired and a bit ashamed he only came from Ohio.

Argh I forgot to really talk about town. Book shops are dope, I had to restrain myself from buying all of them. I got a foolish looking hat from Seas and bought a new memory card (4gb) from Radioshack, which then spent rest of the day setting off all the store alarms. Down the magnificent mile I saw a cool ice rink and crazy sculptures. Finally, I wandered randomly into a comic store and bought the first Angel: After The Fall comic. Woo.

23nd November, 10:44

Chicago you say? a might nippy but quite excellent. I easily walked to hostel and they let me store my bag there for the day. As it's Black Friday I thought I'd hit State Street and then the Magnificent Mile. Been distracted by a Barnes & Noble, it's coffee, a jalepeno pretzel and a free copy of the chicago reader.

They have an interesting "I Saw You" section where if you saw someone you liked but were too shy to tell them, you can post an advert about it. On an unrelated note, people in chicago seem nice, it's quite quiet right now though.

23nd November, 06:16-07:50

06:15

I can't get no sleep

07:30

Argh. Sun rise pretty. Old man next to me has vanished. Strange. Hope he didn't die in the loo or that I threw him out of the window while I slept...

07:50

Holy moly, Christmas pudding and pie. Father Christmas and an elf just came down the carriage...

23nd November, 03:15

If I wasn't so awesomely tired right now I would write something exceptionall poetic about the full moon shing down on the rail yards and highways of North East USA. But I am too tired, so I hope you can just imagine something that's pretty amazing, and similar to what I stumbled to describe.

Things I'm seeing include lots of rusty cars, piles of gravil, SNOW!, large suspicious looking complexes, a selection of patrol cars glistening and covered in snow, distance neon lights, toll gates, a wind mill, some form of big sports stadium for the Cleveland Browns which I think are an American Footie club, woodland, a harbour, more piles of something, and many more things beside.

I finished A Catcher On The Rye, good book if somewhat of a limited vocab, but that was part of the point I think. I really need to try to sleep.