It finally happened - we left Vancouver. After much time anticipating the departure, yet not feeling like it was actually real, the final week at 938 W14th passed in a flurry of packing, sorting, a LOT of cleaning and farewell shenanigans - a delicious meal with Jeff and Happy at a seafood restaurant, watching a final hockey match with Canadians, drinks with Annie, Sarah and Meika, and a last night of Magic playing for Q. Suddenly it was our final night. Packed and ready for our 4.30am start, we had a last meal at Earls with the housemates & Jeff but minus Loic, and headed over to a friend's place to carve some pumpkins. Then back to ours for a last game of Settlers before goodbyes and two hours sleep.
Our trip to Chicago was a long one with lots of waiting and long journeys (which included some necessary baggage reshuffling and emergency jettisoning of spare books to get suitcases to an acceptable weight!). We were pretty beat by the time we were met by a hilariously disguised Kurt and Jen at O'Hare. A hot shower, good dinner, a few drinks and great company kept us going til we sunk very gratefully into bed.
The rest of our time in Chicago has been excellent. A mix of chilled-out reading time (The Wheel of Time and the latest Dan Brown) with exploring down-town Chicago and walking the dogs. Kurt, Q and I also took part in a very US and Chicago-biased pub quiz night! I think we were the only team to answer any non-US question correctly. Or even attempt one. However, since 95% of questions involved either Chicago streets/taverns/bakeries/baseball, we didn't fare so well overall...although Q and I managed to get 5/7 of the most populous US cities ending in an "s". That's right. I'd challenge any of our competitors to do the same for the UK!
And of course, there was Halloween: US-style! This was a first for me, and I very much enjoyed seeing how they do it: max-fun, max-dressing up (none of the 3 options of ghost/witch/vampire you get in the UK) and max-pumpkinage. As well as carving said veggies, we fed hideous amounts of candy to small children and scoured the thrift stores in order to find something to complete our costumes. I had a pair of fabulous/hideous knee-high patent stiletto purple boots, two green net curtains, some purple satin long gloves and a lot of green make up. Q had a velvet smoking jacket, cigar and purple satin trousers. Introducing....Poison Ivy and Hugh Hefner! Photos forthcoming. Accompanied by Vampire Jen and Brokeback Kurt, we hit possibly the poshest bar I've been to in a long time: Roof - unsurprisingly on a rooftop of a high-rise downtown. After a few drinks, scoping out the other costumes (Tetris and Earl from My Name Is Earl being my favourites, whilst Q checked on as many of his bunnies as he could find) and scooping a free plate of fries, we headed off to a decidedly cheaper bar and met up with a girl in a bathtub - Jen's friend Kelly. A few drinks and conversations with the Tenenbaums, Snow White and Ghostbusters later, we headed home, sated.
More Chicago fun to follow - and a trip to Wisconsin this weekend! I'm muchly excited about this as I've really only been to major spots in the US and Wisconsin sounds distincly off-radar. Maybe there will be bears...!
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