Chicago.

Chicago

Last weekend we went to Chicago as I updated you about in my last post. This was my first time in a really big city. I've been to London, Paris and Berlin before, but there's something different and special about going to a city with loads of sky scrapers and insane traffic. On the way there (and obviously on the way back as well) we went through 3 different states: Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. 3 states down, 47 to go!

the amount of food that could be
brought on the trip to the states

The first thing we did when we got to Chicago was to visit the Sweden American Museum. They had an exhibition with art made by a Swedish artist, a whole floor made as a playground for kids but inspired by how it was to live in Sweden before the emigration to the US, and one floor had information about the trips over to America and stuff that people brought that was Swedish etc. They also had some information about Swedes, one of them was Ralph Wallenberg.

a Dala horse in the Swedish
neighborhoods

After spending about an hour in the museum we went to the Swedish shop they had, which had Swedish souvenirs like the Dala horse, T-shirts, children books by Astrid Lindgren and Elsa Beskow, and of course Swedish knäckebröd, lingon-jam, chocolate, glögg and gingerbread cookies (pepparkakor). We bought some lingon-jam and läkerol to have as a treat during the day. When we were done we went further down the street and came across 2 Swedish restaurants, both claimed they had typical Swedish food but they only had a meatball dish and the rest were just sounding like it'd be Swedish. After walking a bit more we found the food shop which had everything you could imagine from Sweden and Norway. Kalle's kaviar, Ekströms products, chocolate and candy, different kinds of jams, cheeses like Präst and Västerbotten etc... We got some stuff here as well, KEX chocolate and Ballerina cookies :) Now I am one happy Swede!

the cookies we bought

But that's not it, we also went to a Swedish Bakery! They had all different kinds of cookies and cakes that my Grandparents bake and also what you can have in a regular Swedish Cafe. And it also tastes just like at home! We bought some cookies so Jess could try some that I think are delicious. We got some dry small ones like Finska pinnar and also a few others. Toska, Dammsugare, Biskvi and one I don't remember the name of. Mmm it was amazing!

Chicago by night

In the evening we decided to walk to the Downtown area, which was about 3 miles from where we stayed (= about 5.5km). It took us about an hour to get there and we walked around there for maybe another hour before we went to a pizza place and had a delicious stuffed pizza. We only ate half of it so we got the other half with us in a box and we started to walk back to the Hotel. It was a very long walk and my legs hurt so bad after, almost cramping. But I fell asleep and woke up to have the most unhealthy breakfast in my life! Donuts. With chocolate frosting. Delicious! I also had cereals, but they were sugary, some orange juice, coffee and some toast. Notice that we actually went to eat twice, first around 7.21 (yes we have problems with 7.20 so we got happy when it was 7.21 so it wasn't that early) and second time around 10. Nom nom nom! After eating and packing our stuff together we decided to take the car back to where we live because it was raining and no one likes to walk around in the rain!

We hadn't even got out of Chicago before there was a traffic jam. A truck had tipped over and blocked 3 of 4 lanes so we stood still for about 45min before it started to move again. I don't know how the police, ambulance and tow truck got through between all the cars and trucks which just stood there but they did and we got away from there in one piece. And one the way back I got to try another America fast food restaurants food, Taco Bell. It was delicious, but we could have done it ourself at home.

Yesterday we went for a walk and took some photos of the beautiful fall colors that will disappear soon. We wanted to go to a place we've seen when driving, but we didn't find it so we're going back later this week.

Hammy Speedster

Also, here's a photo of Hammy Speedster, our precious hamster. We've now had her for about two weeks and she's twice as big than the picture! Oh those kids grow up so fast...

Chicago!

Tomorrow me and Jess are going on a mini road trip to Chicago! We'll leave early in the morning because it takes about 3 hours to get there. While we're there we'll go to the Swedish parts of the city, where we also will stay for the night. A museum about the Swedish immigration and stuff is one of our things to do, as well as a Swedish restaurant, specialty shop and bakery. Something is telling me our new healthy lives wont be that healthy these days! On Saturday we'll go to downtown Chicago, which is the center. Then it's time to head back to Grand Rapids for a Halloween/Birthday party at a girl's place who also studied in Brighton with Jess, and happens to go to the same school!

Time to get busy!

We just bought a hamster.

Dragshow, Hockey, Dinner, Parents and Urgency care.

Time to do another stats list. This time the theme is "I have never ... before I came to the US". (there's a lot more than this, but I can't think of any more right now)

• I've never seen seven different kinds of M&M's on the same shelf before I came to the US
• I've never driven an automatic car before I came to the US(I'm buying one of those when I can afford it)
• I've never been at an urgency care/health center three times in a span of two days + a pharmacy before I came to the US (of what i can remember)
• I've never been to a drag show before I came to the US
• I've never eaten Mac'n'Cheese before I came to the US
• I've never seen a traffic sign saying "Bridge may be icy", which is up all year around, before I came to the US

Last couple of days have, as usually, been busy and filled with stuff. There is always more to do over the weekends when Jess is off school on Fridays and we have three full days to do what we'd like to, apart from studying of course!

Clocktower, GVSU

Our weekend started off with a drag show on Thursday evening. It was organized through Jess' school so we headed over there with Alyssa, Jess' roommate and her 2 friends. It was the first time I went to a drag show and it was fun and funny. Tho some of the performers could have worked a bit harder with their stage time, but at least they had the guts to do it. I'd never be brave enough to do what they did. The host was hilarious of and on and changed outfits from a diva dress, to a rainbow dress and finally an avatar costume. After the show me and Jess decided to walk around a bit at campus so I could take photos in the dark. It was a bit scary, because we had also said no to the drive back to the house. Meaning we had to walk among this road which has no lights and there's a bit of traffic. We made it back in two pieces tho. 

Lobster dinner

Friday we had decided to make a nice dinner, because Saturday would be our seven-months-together-day, but we were gonna meet Jess' parents then. We had plans of having lobster tails, but when we got to the store Nick said we could buy a whole lobster and cook it because that'd be cheaper. And so we did! It was an experience I'm more than happy to have gone through. It was a bit scary to put the little guy in the water, but eating him was delicious! Definitely doing this again. Later on that night, we went to watch GVSU's girls hockey team because Jess is a mentor for international students and one of them is playing for the team. What a coincidence that girl is also Swedish! Hehe, so we went over there but Kajsa didn't play sadly. She's one of three goalkeepers so I guess it was her turn to sit on the bench so the other two could play. We left after the first period with GVSU in a safe 4-0 lead, which came to a total of 11-0 when the game had ended. They met the same team the day after and won with 9-0. Champions right there!

Croton Dam (Jess and her mom)

And then the big day came, time to meet the parents. I was so nervous at first, and was nervous for a pretty long time. But her parents are really nice and I had a good time. We had planed to go downtown to see ArtPrize, and go to an apple farm and pick apples, but we ended up going north on a little road trip. The country is beautiful up there with a lot of colorful trees and lakes. We stopped at a place called Croton Dam which is huge! Crossing over the dam, you get under the water level and it's kind of amazing and scary at the same time. We drove around a bit up there and then headed back towards Grand Rapids, where we stopped on the way to eat which was a buffet and we almost died from eating.

Our room, clost to the left where
Jess temporary lives

Then Sunday something terrible happened. Jess fell asleep with her contacts and woke up with an eye infection. It got so bad her parents had to pick us up so we could go to the urgent care in Walker. Jess didn't get any medicine there because they said the pain would be gone to 75% tomorrow(Monday). Well, that didn't happen. Non of us got any sleep last night and the pain was even worse today. So at 9am I had to drive Jess to the Health Center at GVSU so she could hopefully get some prescription on eye drops to make it better and so she did. Off to the pharmacy and back and now it's a lot better. She can actually see and keep her eyes open for long times instead of laying in the closet where it's pitch black or having to wear a towel over her head when there's just a tiny bit of light.

We also had Wendy's in Walker.

This is my website that I've been working on for school: http://evelinaborjessonphotography.tumblr.com/
Go ahead and take a look! I might post the better photos that I have there, instead of in this blog so keep yourself updated!
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I'm going to try to fix the gallery so the photos are shown in a viewer and not a new page.

My fisheye which I ordered some days before I left Sweden arrived this week! So me and Jess went to pick it up today and well.. I'm in love! :)

Speed signs a la USA

Walks, ArtPrize and an over-sized mall.

the Transformational Link

This weekend has been filled with stuff to do. Jess is off school on Fridays, so we went to Meijer's, a huge grocery store here, and bought food and stuff we needed. After that we went on adventures at the campus near where we live. We walked around among the buildings there and it's really different to how it is at home. Well, I've never really been at a University in Sweden, but I think that it's not like this. Anyhow, we just walked around and Jess was telling me what the buildings were for and also some statues here and there. There's this huge blue thing that is called the Transformational Link and you're only supposed to go under it one way. We ended up going to Jess' brother's place to play Halo: Reach for about 4 hours. It's one of the best games I've played and we're trying to get over there again asap to destroy some more aliens!

the fish

Saturday, we started the day with a work out. My arms has never been that sore and dead as that morning. Jess is a killer when it comes to lifting. My poor week arms had to life 8lbs (~4kg)  at a time! After lifting we walked to a good road for running or walking. Jess took off and I was walking in my own speedster pace. I succeeded to walk pretty far while Jess ran. It was pretty windy and cold, but as long as we were moving it was fine. No frost bites yet! Even tho we were really tired after working out, we got ready and went Downtown for ArtPrize, which is a huge art exhibition and competition between the creators. There's a lot of cool stuff to see, also a lot of weird things that you never thought anyone would think of creating. Like a steam pig or a fish made of things you can find in your garage. Me and Jess walked around there together with her friend John, who's nice, and we were supposed to watch the free concert at 7pm including Natasha Bedingfield and David Archuleta (American Idol). Tho' there were a few opening acts for them and it was really cold so we spent about 25min watching a guy who looked like he got electrocuted multiple of times. And his voice sucked so we decided to walk back to the car and go back to campus. (I will probably meet up with Jess after she's done with class so we can walk around and look at ArtPrize more, I want to take lots of photos but there were way too many people around so I didn't get to o it.)

Later on we went to pick up Nick and some other people, including a Swede (!), to get over to Jess' friend's place. We had a good time laughing, playing pointless games, telling stories and eating Swedish candy which I had taken with me with the hope that the people would eat it all up. That's what Jess wanted at least. The candy was a success and some people almost died from the heavenly taste.

Rivertown Crossing Mall

I'm finishing this off with my greatest shopping experience in my life. Meaning: I went to the biggest mall I've ever seen with my own eyes, Rivertown Crossing Mall. It was huge! A lot bigger than the ones we have in Gothenburg and this is not even a big one, Jess said. We went around in some stores and I bought a pair of jeans and a belt for only $38 (=270kr). It's great! I haven't found a converter tho, we were supposed to look for it there but I realized it when we got back to our place.

Btw, traffic here is insane!