Story from Chicago

Cloud Bean. I don't know why the result comes out like this.

What does interest you to come visiting a world class city? The eagerness arises probably because you are curious about what TVs, Movies and Internet news, books, or even your close friends have told you. Those tellers utterly stimulate your passion to come visiting a place. It happens to us as well. Three of us: two friends and I had that psychological thing in our mind. When I hear Chicago, the first thing that comes to my mind is Chicago Bulls. This professional basketball team used to be so famous in my sphere. That is because the TV channel which my junior high school friends and I used to watch was TVRI, a public owned Indonesian TV, aired NBA competition all the time. That was the ONLY channel that we watch even though we did not like Basket game that much. As the time went by, I submerged myself into some basketballers’ names. For instance, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Alajuwon, Shaquelle O’Neal, and other names that I don’t remember any longer. Some decades ago, you just could not be a fan of soccer players from the USA. The US did have some soccer leagues were going on down here though, but they were suck. It is just recently that US public became cheerful on the soccer game when the US team made a progress  in 2014 FIFA world Cup in Brazil. Therefore, Chicago Bulls always sticks deeply in my mind more than anything else.  

But, currently Chicago may have hundreds if not thousands of places to be remembered via mainstream tellers, and they are dazzling to be visited. Chicago is ranked as the fourth largest city in the US according to unknown source. Leveled on its ranking, of course it is a haven for business, entertainment, industry and so on and on. From the Google search engine, everybody can tell how it is. Even so, its size did not matter for us because we would not be visiting the entire city; here I am revealing my own inconsistency because the fact is that we did not even visit any of the Chicago Bulls’ important icons which I underlined earlier. However, the point is we just could visit the places that we afford. When I say ‘what we can afford,’ it means time and cost. So, besides of the importance of the backpacker’s skills, theory of the cost and benefit analysis is also put into practice during our traveling time. If you agree, then follow me to the story of what we were doing right there.

Just to remind if you did not follow the line that another friend came on board when we went on the trip from St. Louis to Chicago. We took the same bus company because the reason is affordability. The traveling duration was around 5 hours. There in Chicago, our plan has changed because we wanted to stay for three nights and four days. Therefore, a roaming style in downtown is not appropriate because that would be a pure homeless style. We could have done that, actually, but that was too risky. We need to know the Homeless terms of guidelines because the City of Chicago must have stricter rules, and that it must also have heavier penalties for those who are nomadic in the downtown area during three nights. It does not sound like challenging anymore, but it does sound like putting our lives at risk if we ever tried it in this city. Therefore, we decided to stay in an affordable hostel. We, three shared one bedroom during three nights. The hostel is a so musical home for travelers, and breakfast is provided. Self-prepared meal is allowed here. They also give a one-night-free-ticket to go to a blues live music just a mile from where you sometimes snoring. If you ever interested in Blues music, Chicago is a home of it. I have not been hired to become their salesman, but I highly recommend that place to my fellow international students here in the US who do not have any single friend domiciled in Chicago.

The exploration of Chicago city started right at the morning of that arrival night. The first place we visit was Willis Tower. As you might know, one of the of the world’s tallest buildings is in Chicago. There’s nothing so much difference with other skyscraper buildings we all you know. It erects vertically like any other buildings. However, the uniqueness of this building is the top floor is used as an attraction for those who want to feel high ground sightseeing. That is called Sky Deck. An architect modified the wall on the last floor to challenge acrophobia people. He removed a piece on that level and then created a ledge. That ledge is made up of glass. It is transparent. So when you step on, you feel like you are walking in the middle of the air. Down there you see no object moving because the sight is too far up there to the ground. It is a simple building modification idea I have ever seen that makes a huge difference. When we visited it, there are about 25.000 visitors on that day. This number, according to the information leaflet, flows the same every day. You times that with 25 bucks each visitor, and you will ‘wow’ big money Bro. and at the same time you will imagine the reason why US is economically superior. Please visit bro G, to ask more details about how it looks like. Another vivid tourist attraction is The Giant Bean as I name it myself. This is also another crowded place. It is free of charge because the object lies in an outdoor area. Visitors can see it, touch it, and take photos as many as their memory cards are able to store.

The city of Chicago does everything they can to attract visitors. Bus tour is so convenient and satisfying as well. The visitors of Chicago city can use this service to explore the downtown area. The bus is double decker bus. Sitting on the roofless top level, our sight goes everywhere. Each bus has one guide. The guy is responsible to explain every land mark the bus passes by. When we were touring, starvation kicked in, but it went away after a new guide "chubby" walked in bringing his typical jokes. He was even funnier because we noticed that he was hungry, too. We noticed that from his hidden starvation feeling which he expressed through his words. He explained every restaurant along the route. He swallowed his saliva quite often as if he could not wait to eat. Every time he dramatized the different types of pizza’s taste to us, and that we ridiculed him a lot because he is a guide, and he should have explained more about the buildings or monuments instead of food all the time. That’s funny though. 

As we find it in every modern city, there is nothing free. But I found a huge difference between Asian cities and American cities. In Asia, you would find malls, super shopping malls in the downtown area. This kind of city is convenient for the visitors who only come for sightseeing, particularly backpackers. They would easily find a restroom if they need to. Chicago has no such malls to respond visitors’ that kind of urgency.As a result, it is so hard to find a free restroom. Even McDonald, Subway's restrooms are open only for their customers. This probably only happens in the American big cities because in Lawrence, I can just go in to a Subway and asking to use the restroom for a while. With that reality, we had an adventurous experience in finding a restroom. I don’t know whether you already had such a following story. We know that feeling to pee is so contagious. I can make up my own theory; for men, particularly in a group, if one person wants to pee, everyone will likely want to. Now the problem is where to find a free restroom in Chicago? That is a tough question. What we did was even though we were not hungry, we had to eat something in order to use the restroom. So, the applied backpacker strategy was one person buys subway, and the other two will use the restroom for free, that’s quite a smart strategy, isn’t it?

That’s the end of the story in Chicago. I will see you again in Iowa City.

**Hope this gives you and inspiration.