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...