Farewell Chicago
So, we are now in Seattle.
Our last night in Chicago was spent at the John Hancock building. Entry to the observation deck was $15 so we decided to forgo this and instead go to the 96th floor where the bar is located. We both bought a drink which was $12, cheaper than getting the observation deck and something else to enjoy while there. The view was truely amazing, the whole of downtown Chicago was laid out before us, with Navy Pier and the harbour to our left. The financial district had plenty of skyscrapers shooting for the heights while in the background there was the residential area lit up, the blocks forming neat patterns which disappeared into the distance. We were lucky enough to bag a table right by the floor to ceiling window (virtually jumping into another couples grave when they left) and just gawped for a very long time.
We had to have a fairly early night as we had to get up at 4.45am (I KNOW!!) to drag our sorry butts to the train station so that we got to O'hare airport on time for our 8am flight to Seattle. Security was tight, even making us take our shoes off to go through the metal detectors. We had unfortunately not been able to book seats next to each other on our Alaska Airways plane, we both had the middle chair of a three row run with Rachel seated one row in front of me. I was squashed between a rather large goth looking man (who was actually rather camp and spent the trip watching Scissor Sisters videos) and a guy who fell asleep before the doors were even closed! Thankfully the three and a half hour flight arrived forty minutes ahead of schedule (thank you cross winds).
When we got out of the airport we headed for the bus stop which we had been told would drop us close to our hostel. It didnt take too long to arrive and all I can say was it was an experiance riding it! The driver was a grumpy woman who mearly grunted at me when I asked if she could let us know when we got to our stop and the actual passengers were......ecclectic. We sat on the bus for close to an hour, going through some fairly run down streets and did start to worry that Seattle wasnt exactly as we had thought. Nearer the Downtown area we started to spot high rises, then the bus disappeared into a tunnel and stayed there! It turns out that there is a whole underground system for the buses as well as trains. There is an Underground tour you can take that leads you through a huge network of tunnels where the first settlers built their town. It was unfortunately burnt to the ground quite sometime ago.
We eventually arrived at our hostel, which is right in the heart of Downtown, next to the Pike Street Market, a bustling place that is practically on the waters edge and jumping at all times of the day with people. Seattle is two hours behind Chicago timewise so by the time it got to 9pm we were shattered as our bodies were telling us it was 11pm!
