Adventures in C-town(s)

Leaving the East Coast, I headed out into the “Mid-West”, which as far as I can make out is an area that goes from Ohio to Nevada and basically a get-out-of-jail-free card for anything that’s not on either coast. First stop Chicago, the city which taught New York everything it knows. The first sky-scraper was built in Chicago and it still has the tallest building in the country.

Now you might think that, being in the middle of the country, Chicago isn’t on the coast. In fact, Chicago is on the coast: the coast of the Sea of Michigan. A lot of people call the Sea of Michigan a lake, but this seems misguided to me, seeing as when you’re in the middle of this “lake” your eyesight would have to be 30 times better than the average person to see either side. There are beautiful beaches all along the coast of this sea, and one of the great strokes of city-planning genius that Chicago has achieved is that they have left a big strip of luxurious parkland all the way down the shores.

Other than that, Chicago is not an aesthetically pleasing place, but it makes up for it by being incredibly fun. I was lucky to catch a few days of the “Taste of Chicago”, a food festival where all kinds of restaurants set up tents and sell samples of their trademark dishes, including the delicious deep-dish pizza which, I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone, is conclusively far better than New York’s.

On one of the days I headed down to the infamous South Side and took a spin around the homely University of Chicago, the academic powerhouse where “fun goes to die”, according to the T-shirts. This is where Obama taught law during his stint as an Illinois politician, so I took a peak at his house, which is frankly far too big for any self-respecting family with only two kids. Elitist scum.

Then came July the Fourth. It’s always a little awkward being British in America on Independence Day, but also very fun. Chicago likes to make a statement by having its big fireworks display on the 3rd instead of the 4th, but it was still pretty impressive and went on for ages. In the UK, on Guy Fawkes night or New Years Eve, there are great fireworks shows, but they last about five minutes at most. In Chicago it went on for about half an hour. The combined presence of fireworks and lots of interesting food meant that the crowds were unbelievably dense across the huge area of Grant Park and the surrounding fields, so I got a taste of what things must have been like on election night when Obama gave his victory speech in the exact same place.

On the Fourth itself I headed down to a local party with my Chicago host, a great guy named Parker, where there were local bands playing and barbecue food to be devoured. It kind of went Glastonbury after the second or third hour of rain, but we were leaving anyway to head back to Grant Park to watch legendary bluesman Buddy Guy give a free performance, which was seriously cool. After that, we headed out to a couchsurfing “Revolutionary Party”, a fancy dress affair where you had to go as a famous historical American, making me feel even more awkward. Naturally I went as John Lennon. They actually had King George III up on a dart board. It was a fantastic party and I now have lots of life-long friends in Chicago, hurrah! One of the best bits was that you could go up on the roof of the building and watch the local fireworks going off all around the city, a beautiful experience.

The next morning I managed to groggily managed to pull myself into consciousness and suddenly realised that the bus was leaving soon and I had left some stuff in my hosts car, which was down by the party place. After some serious rushing I just caught the bus in time, but it was all in vain because once we got to Indianapolis, we had to change buses. They told me the new bus was leaving at eight, so with some time to kill I took a stroll around the city centre and got back for about 7:30 (Indianapolis is actually quite pleasant, contrary to what people had told me). Of course what I didn’t realise was that we had crossed a time zone and it was actually 8:30. So I spent the night taking assorted buses through various states and eventually got to my destination, Cincinnati, Ohio, about ten hours after I should have.

The whole thing was worth it though, because when I stepped out of the bus station in Indianapolis, I suddenly heard a huge roaring, like a jet plane taking off behind me, and I turned to see thre REAL LIFE Hell's Angels shoot past on REAL LIFE Harley Davidson motorbikes and REAL LIFE handlebar moustaches and shoulder-length hair, and REAL LIFE leather jackets, one of which said, for real life, "Hell's Angels" on the back. Even if I had seen nothing else in America, this would have been more than enough to justify the whole trip.

Cincinnati was also nicer than I was expecting, even if it wasn’t the most hip-hop happening place in the universe. I took a pleasant stroll around the Mont Matre-esque Mt. Adams, and then hooked up with my hosts, who were actually the brother and sister of my Obama campaign friend Steve from Washington DC. They were very enjoyable and made a great dinner for me. I also managed to sample a “three way”. For all you dirty-minded people, this is obviously a famous Cincinnati staple, basically spaghetti with chili sauce and cheese.

When I was in the bus station to leave, I saw a group of REAL LIFE Amish people. The women had long plain dresses and those white puritan head bonnet things, and the men had incredible facial hair. One old dude had a massive fluffy white beard down to his bellybutton. It was exactly like in that film whose name I can't remember with Harrison Ford. Can I just say for the record that Amish men have the coolest dress sense ever. They have these vibrant shirts and snappy waistcoats, and awesome broad-brim hats. I wish I could be as cool as them.

And so now I’m on another bus, completing the next leg of my mid-western meanderings. For now, I leave you with the million dollar question: how do you pronounce “Illinois”? Is it A) illy-no-is (rhymes with show-biz), B) illy-noi (rhymes with the French, pour quoi), C) illy-noy (rhymes with McCoy) or D) illy-noise?