Chicago, Arlington House Youth Hostel, Friday, October 21, 6:05
am
Hello from Chicago - First Impressions
So here I am again, on another short excursion away from home.
I've been awake for an hour already and decided the best thing is
to get up and put my first impressions on paper. Since there is
only a one hour time difference between Toronto and Chicago I decided
yesterday I wasn't even going to change my watch over. So when I
came down this morning to use the free computer at the Arlington
Youth Hostel in Chicago, I realized it's not 7 am, but actually
only 6 am. Well, even better, that'll give me more chance to explore.
A trip to Chicago has been in the works for a while. I have been
here twice before, once in 2001 with 3 of my friends, and once in
April of 2003 to meet my friend Linda who I have known from back
home in Austria since we are 10 years old. You realize you are getting
old when you can say to someone that you have known them for 30
years...
So Linda, who now lives in Indiana, and I decided to reunite in
Chicago again, so she is planning to come in today at 10:25 with
the South Shore Railway Line. I, on the other hand, decided to fly
this time, instead of driving or taking the train (15 hours from
Toronto!!!) as I did the last two times.
As I've done several times this year already in my trips to New
York City and Vancouver/Victoria,
I decided to use my Airmiles
to come down to Chicago on a free flight, and what a great decision
that was since the flight is just over an hour long. With the help
of Airmiles, this is shaping up to be a really reasonable and cost-effective
weekend getaway in a great city that will allow me to keep my costs
as low as possible.
Church in Lincoln Park Neighbourhood
Yesterday, I flew out of Pearson International Airport at 4:45 pm
and arrived at 5:30 Chicago time. Chicago's O'Hare Airport is the
world's busiest airport, and judging by the size of the terminals,
I can only concur. After walking what felt like miles I reached
the level where the subway trains depart, and I bought a 3-day visitor
ticket for US$12.00. Chicago, similar to New York City, has a great
transit system, with a large network of interconnected buses, subways
and elevated trains. I am fascinated by the "el-train"
system that runs through the downtown area and the "Loop"
as it is called. The train on stilts has been in existence since
the early 1900s, and it allows you to see some of the beautiful
architecture that Chicago has to offer.
My destination was the Arlington
House Youth Hostel, a place I had already stayed at during my
earlier two trips. At US$56.00 per night for a private room for
2 people (albeit with a shared bathroom), you can't beat the pricing.
The Arlington House is located in the beautiful neighbourhood of
Lincoln Park and literally just 15 minutes from downtown by el-train
or bus. It took me 45 minutes by train to get to the Washington
Station downtown where I changed over to the red line which just
took about 10 to 15 minutes to get me to Fullerton.
A city doesn't get much more photogenic than that
I am usually pretty proud of my 'highly developed sense of orientation',
but when I left the Fullerton el-train station it was dark already
and I promptly ended up walking westwards on Fullerton, in the opposite
direction of where I was supposed to go. I managed to successfully
delay my arrival at the youth hostel by about 45 minutes due to
walking in the wrong direction and not being able to connect with
anyone who might have known where the youth hostel is. None of the
DePaul university students that I asked had any idea of where the
intersection of Lincoln and Fullerton was, they were probably all
new in town themselves. I finally arrived at the next larger intersection
"Ashland" and realized I had walked about 2 or 3 km westwards,
in the wrong direction.
Pretty tired from rolling my suitcase around I decided to catch
the bus back east on Fullerton and arrived at the Arlington House
not much later. The Arlington House with its large entrance hall
full of young (and older) travellers and its absolutely spartanic
rooms (no closets, no night tables, no table lamps, no chairs, no
desks - just a metal bunk bed for our private room) is always an
experience. But I love it, it makes me feel young again to hang
out with all these world travellers and adventurers of different
ages.
I had originally planned to head downtown, but due to my detour
I was pretty pooped and decided to just go and eat something locally.
I strolled south on Clark Street which has many lively little restaurants
and plopped myself down in a place called Ranalli's where I had
an extremely filling soup, salad and tiramisu dinner. After all
this running around it was nice to sit down, read the paper, including
the events calendar and try to figure out what adventures could
be in store for this weekend.
Pub in Lincoln Park neighbourhood
Today I got up early, actually an hour earlier than I thought
since I want to do some exploring before my friend Linda comes into
town. I am planning to meet her at 10:25 at the Randolph Street
train station, so I have a few hours for exploring before she comes
into town.
I might take a bus north, or go south into the Old Town Neighbourhood,
close to North Street.
It's going to be interesting.....
Useful books about Chicago:
Related Articles:
Hello from Chicago - First Impressions
Hello from Chicago - What a fabulously
photogenic city!
Hello from Chicago - Multiple Austrian
connections
Hello from Chicago - A personal tour
of the Chicago Cultural Center
Hello from Chicago - A visit to the
Pullman Historic District
Hello from Chicago - Chinatown and
Second City
Hello from Chicago - The Field Museum
and "Pompeii - Stories from an Eruption"
Here is our brand-new Chicago
Travel Guide
|