En route: memoirs from Chicago

Go out there and make memories - sounds like a right note to self given around mid-summer. Although summer road trips and music festivals are not always an option in the light (shadow?) of some everyday commitments, it's always pleasant to dig up old photos and treat yourself with some good memories. I've neglected my affair with travel photography for such a long time now, either in the aspect of making actual travel escapades or simply going through and editing the old pictures. However, August brought out so many online visual travel reports out there that it made me think about my past adventures. When snapshots from Lollapalooza poured out on Twitter/Instagram, that remained me about my stay in Chicago exactly two years ago. And that's the journey I'd like to kick-off the new blog thread with - travel diaries, En route.

It was August 20th 2010 when I started my one-month summer traveling through the States with some friends. As cliché as it sounds, it does feel like yesterday. The afternoon train from the Chicagoland suburbia and some geographical help from the welcoming passengers appeared to be very inviting. Even though we got to the North Side of the city quite late, after finding the lovely tenement house that our soon-to-be host lived in and meeting other fellow travelers from California, we managed to see what a nighlife in Boystown looks like. The bars were great and the Long Island beer pitchers were really long, so was the night.

The following four days in Chicago passed by too quickly and too foggily - the never-ending nights and walking around a lot kept me tired all the time. Luckily, I didn't need to think very soberly to photograph, and there are many highlights from the stay that I remember really well. Some of them include: the first glimpse at emerging skyscrapers from an underground station perspective, taking the red train line from the Loyola station to the Loop every day (okay, I just had a look on the map), getting the chance of seeing city's panorama from the balconies of the Willis Tower for free, paying the fist visit to Urban Outfitters and ending it up with a pair of favorite sandy boat shoes, the lunch in Chinatown, playing with my reflections on The Bean, listening to some random yet good concert in Millennium Park, but above all the people I met. Truly inspiring girls from California, the kindest hosts and their friends who dropped in occasionally all made my very first CouchSurfing experience unforgattable. And if you're curious how windy Chicago actually is, you should hang out at a pier by the Lake Michigan in the middle of the night - it feels amazing.

My travel schedule for the next places looked as follows:

Los Angeles: 24/8, 28-30/8

Las Vegas and The Grand Canyon: 25-27/8

Boston: 1-2/9

Washington DC: 3-4/9

Philadelphia: 5-6/9

New York City: 7-17/9

PS. I'm so glad I've finally managed to make this post published. The number of photos I've gone through was enormous, then my Internet connection has been down for a while, and in general lately I've been looking for a little freshness for the blog since it feels like the theme of the posts has been getting a bit too village. Plus, what a fine occasion to add one of my favorite songs.

 
Chicago by Sufjan Stevens