Pushing Pesos: America here we come....first stop CHICAGO!

For those who have been eagerly anticipating the next post, I truly apologise. The blog was actually written up to date but not published and unfortunately my mobile got stolen with all the drafts so essentially I have had to start again. However, I shall pick up from where we were last.

After a long flight from Guatemala with a change over in Mexico City, we finally arrived in Chicago O'Hare airport very early in the morning. We were greeted with the America national anthem blasting through the tannoys as we queued for immigration. I watched as a young Mexican woman was being heavily questioned by the immigration officer, her knees knocking as she explained in broken English the reason for her visit.Next up, I was also met with the same volume of questions joined with a steely stare. I was asked how much money I had, what my intentions were, what will I do when I get back England etc. It was like participating in an intense pub quiz, I stood there wondering if I had answered it correctly. Sure enough he stamped my passport and I was in, the American leg of our journey had commenced!

The reason we decided to go to Chicago was that I have family that live there. We were lucky enough to be picked up from the airport and taken to my Aunties house where we would stay a week. My family live on the outskirts of Chicago so we were able to experience the suburban American life. After 7 months of roughing it, we were excited of the prospects of having our own bedroom with a double bed, a bath tub to soak in and the luxury of staying in a house. These are the little things that after a while on the road you grow to appreciate it.

It was really great seeing my family as I hadn't seen my mums side of the family in 15 years. My mums side are from the Philippines so I was taken to a Filipino restaurant which was well and truly heaven. We ate like kings for the whole week, being treated to a family BBQ everyday. It was interesting to see how the Americans lived, everyone had big cars, big houses, big grocery shops (Walmart)! Its like the land of the giants, everything is super big and super-sized. I explained to my cousin that her truck would take up two lanes on a typical English narrow road. The small compacts I did see (they were hard to find) where shrunken next to these monster trucks everyone seemed to have.

My family had a jet ski so we were taken to a nearby lake and I got to ride one for the first time, it was great fun. We were also taken to visit the centre of Chicago to see all the touristy things. We went up to the skydeck at the Willis Tower. At 1,353 feet in the air, the ledge's glass boxes extend out 4.3 feet from the Skydeck. It is not for the faint hearted as the dizzying heights from below can send your heart racing. When we left the Willis Tower we had to vacate the area as they were filming. I was told it was a new Channing Tatum movie to the delight of my Aunties who giggled and squealed at the thought of meeting him. Disappointingly, it was just his stunt double but we did get to see a helicopter land in downtown Chicago which was pretty cool.

After, we drove around the city and we got out to take a picture at the docks on Michigan Lake. It was a wonderful view of the city. I found Chicago very clean and it gave me a feeling that I could easily live there. Hungry, we stopped of at Chinatown where we feasted on amazing Chinese food. My Auntie even convinced Michael to eat chicken feet.

Chicago gave us time to get used to being back in a western country where you could flush the toilet roll down the loo! Having done all our washing (with an actual washing machine and tumbled dried, so fresh and so clean) and borrowed a suitcase so I could ditch my backpack, we were ready to take a flight to San Diego. The plan was to head down to San Diego where we would pick up our red mustang convertible. Travelling 'Fear and Loathing' style we would embark on a road trip up the west coast of California, through Nevada, pass Arizona and back to San Diego.

We had a wonderful time in Chicago catching up with family but we were eager to get back on the road again. With that we booked our flight to San Diego and said our goodbyes.