USA and Canada

At Arlanda airport, I had a nice talk with a Scottish guy, who works for an oil company, that does deep sea mining. The flight went pretty smoothly. We flew over Greenland, which was rather spectacular. And I had bread that felt like rubber to the touch for breakfast.

The flight was late, but there were still trains to the city, so I took one to the city center, or the Loop, as it is also called. I was supposed to meet Cory and Beni there, at Daley Plaza, near the Picasso statue. I was almost the only white person on that train. I got out at Washington and was temporarily disoriented. As I tried to adjust myself and get my bearings, it took me a while to find Daley Plaza.

When I finally made it there, I was, of course, overjoyed to meet Cory and Beni. We all went back to their place, down by South Water Street. The skyscraper they lived in was right beside a small dog park and the trees there were in full white bloom. On the way we met some of their friends and we also got a Subway sandwich for me, since I was still hungry. Their apartment was on the 37th floor of a pretty high skyscraper. It was small, just a living room/kitchen, a bathroom and a small bedroom that didn't even have a door, just a curtain. They prepared an air-filled mattress for me with a pillow and blankets and we soon went to bed.

Beni's and Cory's house is actually quite interesting. When you enter it, you go through a guarded lobby and on the 16th floor there is a gym, sauna, hot tub and a lounge area with free coffee until 9am. It was almost like a hotel. The coffee was what finally got us out of bed. We got a pullover on, went downstairs and I got tea and Beni got coffee for Cory and him. Then, we went back up and had some breakfast. Also, this is the view from their room.

I had gotten tickets for a convention called C2E2. This was a rather weird story actually. On the previous Tuesday, I had watched one of my favorite internet content producers, the Nostalgia Critic, and he said he would be at this convention, so I checked if there were still tickets, and, lo and behold, there still were. Overjoyed, of course, I bought them.

Cory agreed to accompany me, since she was curious. We took an Uber pool to the McCormick Place Convention Center. We shared our Uber with two people who had a stand at the convention, one of them a very left leaning New Yorker.

The con was everything I hoped it would be. Comics, cosplay, merch, and a great artist's alley with a lot of interesting comics and art. Doug Walker, the Nostalgia Critic, and all the other critics were there, too, and they were really nice.

In the afternoon Cory and I met up with Beni and we went to eat at Paneras. I had a really nice salad with crunchy tacos. After that Beni and Cory took me to see on of the old Chicago buildings, back when the city had money. There was an exhibition of doors inside it.

Then I went back for more C2E2 and Beni came with me, because he too was curious.

In the evening Beni and I went grocery shopping and then Beni cooked a really nice dinner with meat and veggies. It was really good.

The weather was pretty good, so we walked through Millennium Park, past the skating rink, to the Bean and to Crown Fountain with its water spouting faces. Needless to say, I took a lot of pictures.

Then, we walked South, along the lake to Adler Planetarium and since Cory was working for the Field Museum, we got free tickets to the Planetarium, and even got to see a show there about the wonders of space. The exhibitions were also really nice. They had old telescopes and astrolabs and a huge to scale exhibition of planets as well as a meteorite you could touch.

After the planetarium, we enjoyed the view of the city a bit and then took a water taxi to Navy Pier. We walked along it, through the winter garden, past the Ferris Wheel and back.

Then had a typical Chicago style deep dish pizza at Giordano's. The service there was terrible and we also soon realized that it probably had been a mistake to sit outside, since it was pretty cold. We could soon relocate to a sunny spot though. The pizza was great! The dough was more like quiche dough than the pizza dough I was used to, and the rim was a lot higher. It also came, as the name implied, in a deep dish. The base was layered thick with cheese, tomatoes and, in our case, vegetables.

After dinner I set off on my own and walked along the Magnificent Mile, Chicago's skyscraper studded shopping street. Most of the shops were closed at this time, though.

One thing I didn't get around noticing, was, that people talked to me a lot. Usually just short chats or quips, but people were a lot more open to conversation than back home. A very nice homeless guy for example remarked upon my camera. At first, I thought he was getting so close to me because he wanted to steal it, but then I realized he was just interested. I told him that the camera had been a gift and then he said that someone must love me very much. All I could do was agree. He left me with a "God bless." and was on his way. For some reason I found that whole exchange touching.

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Chicago is a very diverse city. About a third of the population is black and there is a sizable Latino community as well. There is also a huge gun problem. Especially in the Southern and far Western suburbs there is a lot of gang violence. The year before over 400 people died from mostly gang related gun violence and almost 3000 were injured. The center is pretty safe though and there are "No guns" signs everywhere.

After the morning coffee and tea, Cory and I rented a bike and rode it along the lake, past all the nice city beaches to a suburb area called Gold Coast.

From there, we took an Uber to Wicker Park, the hipster area of town, filled with record stores and hip little coffee shops. Cory had to bring some clothes to Buffalo Exchange, a second hand shop, where you exchanged clothes, instead of buying them. Since I needed a rucksack and she didn't need anything, she gave me one from the credit she got from the clothes she had handed. I thought that was awfully nice of her.

After wandering the streets for a while, we ended up eating tacos at a restaurant where you could sit outside and then went for a doughnut at Stan's Donuts. Both things were really delicious.

After lunch, we walked along the 606, a nice jogging and biking track that had been built on an old train track. Cory wanted to show me the Chicago mural, so I could take some touristy pictures.

Then we walked to Logan Square and Humboldt Park and took a bike there to ride to the parks Southern side. We continued on towards a suburb that was mostly inhabited by Costa Ricans and got some nice ice creams at a store. Then, we went back home.

In the evening, we went to a stand up and improv comedy show called Second City, which was a lot of fun.

In the morning, Cory and I went on an architecture tour, which was free for us, since Cory worked at the museum. I learned a lot about Mies van der Rohe and his famous modernist style and about the difference between turn of the 19th/20th century and mid-20th-century architecture.

Cory was pretty inspired after that and decided to show me a lot of Chicago's own brand of art deco buildings, like Willis tower and the Bank of America Financial Center, and probably the prettiest Target I have ever seen.

For lunch, we went to a nice restaurant/eatery called Portillio’s hot dogs. What a surprise: I had a hot dog there. It was close to a really nice looking McDonald's.

In the afternoon I went to the suburb where the university was. I walked around a bit, went to some really pretty book stores, past a coffee place called Medici and past Robie house which I only saw from the outside since it was closed.

Then I met Beni and he showed me the downright gorgeous university campus.

In the evening we went to up Hancock tower for the sunset view and some food and drinks.

After that, I still took an evening stroll along the river for a bit.

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I was surprised to see that at least the Chicago downtown is very clean. There are no graffitis or tags anywhere. Apparently that’s because the city spends millions a year to remove them.

In the morning I went to the Science Museum and took a bus down South. It had some interesting exhibits, but wasn't the best museum of that sort I had seen. However, the coolest thing they had was a rolling ball sculpture that was almost an identical twin to the one in the Swiss Transportation museum. I got a kick out of that. Another impressive thing was a real size plane and a real size World War II submarine and the mirror maze.

In the afternoon I went to the Art Institut of Chicago. This was a lot more interesting to me, since it featured some American Art that you otherwise don’t get in European galleries or anywhere else.

Cory and I went to another deep dish pizza place in the evening called Lou Malnati's Pizzeria and the pizza was even more delicious than the one at Giordano's. I have to say that I’m quite the fan of deep dish pizza now.

Cory and I had brunch at Beatrix, a restaurant in the Loop, and then went shopping. I bought a really nice dress and clutch at Marshall’s. Then, we bought some souvenirs, too. Oh, and I also got a haircut at a place called Supercut.

When we went home it was already time for the Greyhound to Grand Rapids. I ordered my first Uber to the Greyhound station.

The station looked a bit run down, but served nice hamburgers. When we got on the bus, we soon realized, that our driver was grumpy with an attitude. He would complain every time someone would talk for too long or too loudly. On my way around Lake Michigan, I saw steel machinery, oil refineries burning fuel and a lot of interesting billboards for lawyers, home improvement tools and one who reminded real Christians to obey the teachings of Jesus.

Craig and Tricia picked me up from station. I had met Tricia for the first time and she was just as nice as I thought she would be. We spent the whole evening talking until it was already pretty late. They had a separate bedroom with a bed for me in their house, so that was pretty great.

I slept in and found Craig lounging on the sofa. He had brought cakes for breakfast and after Tricia also came in, we spent the morning hanging out and talking.

In the afternoon, we went to Craig's AMC cinema and watched a movie called Colossal. I loved the cinema and its high atrium and the huge bowls of popcorn and the mindboggling selection of drinks you could get.

After that, we drove to city center by highway. We walked through the city and Craig and Tricia showed me a little bit of Grand Rapids and the river flowing through it.

We spent some time at an antique store, and then went to Founders brewery, to meet up with another friend of theirs, Sara, and her boyfriend. We had some really good finger food and I had a delicious dark beer.

After that we went to to the local science museum to see a Pink Floyd themed light show at the planetarium. It was nice, but, to be honest, also a bit nauseating and overwhelming and especially Craig felt pretty bad after it. When we got back to the apartment we talked some more and I also played Persona a little bit.

In the morning Craig and I took an Uber to the place where Tricia worked. It was a laundry service place that also had a coffee shop where you could get food and coffee while your laundry was washing. I washed my clothes and Craig washed some pillows and the two of us had some crepes and a nice conversation.

After Tricia was off from work, we went back to their house to play some Zelda and we also watched a musical called Into the Woods.

In the evening I had to go to the Greyhound bus station for my trip to Toronto. I ran into the problem of having double-side printed the tickets for the bus. Since the bus drivers had to keep the tickets as proof that the person was on board, that put me in quite the predicament. Luckily I could copy the tickets at Kalamazoo station. At the station I ran into another problem. The bus from Chicago I had to take to Detroit, did not arrive. Luckily though, a bus driver from another company was willing to take me and another guy at no extra charge.

Because the bus hadn’t come, only three of us from that bus from Kalamazoo changed to the bus to Toronto in Detroit. One of us was a black girl traveling from Jamaica and for some reason the border guards thought it was great to search her very thoroughly and ask her a whole bunch of questions, so we go delayed a little. The rest of the journey to Toronto went without a hitch though, but I still had trouble sleeping.

The first thing I noticed about Toronto was that there were a lot of very modern apartment buildings close to Lake Ontario. Compared to Chicago there is also lots of graffiti. My first order of the day was to get some breakfast. I went to a place called Eggspectations where I had a delicious, full morning meal. I checked out the nearby mall, but the stores were still closed, since it was too early in the morning.

On my way to the hostel I came across a park and checked out the Ontario Legislative Building. I ended up walking through the university campus after that. There were a lot of Chinese tourists.

After I checked in to the hostel I took a walk through China Town.

The weather was pretty bad. Close to freezing temperatures and freezing rain and wind. So, I decided to go and see the Bluejays baseball game in the afternoon. It was interesting. I was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of merchandise and food stalls around at the stadium. I liked the small sponsored games between innings where people could win prizes, though and the camera that always showed a different part of the crowd, I remembered that from when we used to be in the US some 24 years ago. I also like the small ceremony of cleaning the field every couple of innings and of the team getting together in the center of the field to change pitchers. What I didn’t like was that the people in the crowd were dissing opposing players in the field. I just rubbed me the wrong way and I thought it was bad sportsmanship.

After the game I walked back to the hostel through Kensington Market, a very hipster area with colorful cafes and stores.

I had been feeling weird all day. Probably from a lack of sleep and from the sudden change in weather and when I got back my head was hot and I was pretty weak.

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Tim Horton is coffee brand here in Canada, and everyone going to Starbucks is jokingly branded as a traitor, it seems.

I was sick with a 39 °C fever today, so my body moved about as fast as molasses. Luckily there was a walk-in clinic close to the hostel where I stayed. They said I had strep throat, gave me medication, and sent me back to bed. With nothing else to do I went back to the hostel, drank tea and talked to people. I also had to cancel my trip to Niagara Falls, which was a shame.

I still felt sick and stayed at the hostel.

I was supposed to meet another friend today, Neera, but she decided not to risk meeting me, since she didn’t want to get sick as well. I stayed in bed all day.

In the evening I felt a bit better, but not much. Since I had gotten the tickets, I decided to go to the Welcome to Night Vale show in the evening. The cast didn’t come out for autographs that night, but 5 of us were persistent and waited outside for longer than the rest. I somehow suspected that they were either really tired or possibly even sick as well. At long last Meg came out, looking really tired and offering us free posters to console us.

After the show I walked and talked a bit with the rest of the people who had been waiting there, and we exchanged Night Vale stories. Then, I walked back home through this strange area with all the new apartment buildings and through the biting wind.

I felt better today. Neera told me she would meet me for lunch at a restaurant called Fresh at Bloor Street. I was already there, when she told me she had an emergency meeting. A bit disappointed I ordered lunch for myself.

I walked through the city some more and along the lake promenade. For once, the weather was great!

After that, I decided to go to the Niagara Falls anyway. So, I took the next bus out and spent the late afternoon and evening there. There were a lot of casinos there that I didn’t remember, from the last time I had been there 24 years ago, but I did find the street with the really weird wax museum and ghost houses that had gotten stuck in my memory.

I took the bus back late at night.

I had to get up relatively early to take the bus to Montreal today. The bus ride was long, but peaceful. Montreal on the other hand was not so peaceful. A lot of it was flooded and it was raining again. One architectural oddity that I noticed, was that a lot of the stairs were built on the outside of houses. Apparently that meant that there was more space on the inside and less to heat during winter.

I took the subway to the hostel. My hostel was very close to the Gay Village. The bike shop opposite my hostel was called Bikurious, which I thought was funny. After getting settled in at the hostel, I went to Poutineville and had a poutine.

The next day I was gonna meet Becca, one of my friends who lives in Montreal. We met up at the Notre Dame.

It was raining. We first had a look at the gorgeously refurbished Notre Dame church and then walked through the old town and old port area.

Then we got some pasties at a China Town bakery and ate them in the shelter of a close by convention center.

Since we were both soaked to the bone, we decided to take the bus to Becca’s apartment. I found it interesting that Becca and I, even though we hadn’t seen each other in 10 years, still talked to each other as if almost no time had passed.

At Becca’s apartment, I met her husband, Guillaume. He was very talkative, but an overall nice guy. We had some tea and Guillame and Becca told me a lot about their daily lives, how they made comics and how they love to play Phantasy Star Online.

Later, Becca and I set out again to go to Mont Royal by bus and every bus driver we asked about the way there was looking at us, as if we were crazy, as it was still raining cats and dogs. Still, the view over the city was worth it, in my opinion and on the plus side, apart from some other soaked Chinese tourists, we were the only ones there.

Then, we went to an underground mall and to the local Comic Book Store where Becca was friends with the owner. We had learned that there would be a free comic book day the next day, so we vowed to be back. We had dinner at the local food court.

We returned to Becca and Guillaume’s apartment and spend the evening talking and playing video games, which I enjoyed very much.

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Even though it is said that Montreal is half English and half French, I hear a lot more French all over. Even the TVs in the subway only show French oriented news in French.

The next day, Becca and I met up at the mall and profited off of free comic book day. I also met a lot of her friends there. Then Becca and I had a nice conversation over some food and walked around down town a bit. After that, it was time to go. I went to the airport by bus and caught the plane back to Chicago and then Zurich.