Chicago baby.

Hello!

So last weekend I visited Chicago for the first time.

OH my.

It really is wonderful! Definitely a favourite city I've been to so far, it's just got everything and it's so beautiful with the contrast of the man-made epic skyscrapers and buildings to parks and the pier at the lake!

It was a bit of an adventure too! Me and my friend got the Greyhound coach there... a rickety old coach turned up and we thought: 'Hey, this is where the adventure begins!' Man, we were right. About half way through our journey the coach was going up an incline on an interstate... very, very slowly. Very aptly, just as I had joked about how slowly we were going and how it'd be funny if we just stopped, just that happened.

Our coach broke down.

I know! It was pants at first since we were meeting another friend and this would mean she'd be by herself for however long this ordeal would last, but it did all work out in the end and ended up giving us a story to tell.

We had to wait for the recovery bus and since we had nowhere to go we soon started chatting with fellow passengers and joked the time away.

When the recovery bus eventually did pick us up, because our location was so dangerous, (we were over a train track and on a flipping interstate!) they had to call the state police to close down a lane of the interstate so we could walk around the front of the recovery bus to get into it. So after all this, I can officially say I've walked on an interstate and also declare that I won't be travelling with Greyhound in the future if it can be avoided!

2 hours later than originally planned we arrived in Chicago, we grabbed a taxi to the hostel which was SO lovely, and began to explore the nearby streets, where we witnessed a random and very short lived marching procession about the troops in the Middle East, before we found a pizza place to curb our travelling hunger until the following day where we would venture into downtown.

The following couple of days were spent exploring the city, it's truly wonderful! It has a good transport system, but to be honest a lot of the main tourist spots we wanted to visit are very central and near to each other that you can take your very own walking tour! Every time we stopped and gathered around our map within seconds somebody came over to us to see if they could help us with directions, the people were so friendly!

To end, I'll quickly list the variety of things we got up to!

-Millennium Park with all it's wonderful sculptures including The Bean!
-Sears Tower, we visited the 103rd floor of this building to see the landscape of Chicago at night time.
-Boat ride on Lake Michigan where we toured the city skyline and learned about it's history.
-Giordano's deep dish Chicago style pizza! YUM.
-Michigan Avenue in all it's shopping glory! (The magnificent mile is a stretch of supremely expensive shops, so you know... I just observed the architecture!)
-We went to a Cubs baseball game to experience a favourite American past time! It was fun to cheer and clap, and try and grasp the rules!
-Wandered around the city taking pictures of practically everything!
-To conclude our trip we visited The Buckingham fountain which displays an hourly show with lights and music and crazy jet propulsions, at it's climax the jet propulsions reach 150ft! Immense!

So all in all, it was amazing, and I already would like to go back and explore some more!

Cheryl

P.s. Shout out to the lovely Miss Gemma Chrimes as it was her birthday 2 days ago and I missed it! So... Happy birthday beautiful! This is for you...

DTP

Hello all!

This blog is to recount a personal achievement!

As an International Student this University requires you to submit immunization records to make sure you're healthy and whatnot, but they also sometimes request TB screening tests... Of course these involve needles. 

(insert heart palpitations here)

I've been putting off going to the Health Centre ever since I arrived, but today I finally plucked up the courage (after receiving many prompting emails!) and I went. It was nerve racking to say the least. 

I arrived and had to fill out a ton of forms, and then having done so, I had to do the dreaded thing: sit and wait in a surgery. I don't know what it is, or where this fear came from but I loathe any kind of medical institute, especially the ones that want to administer sharp pointed objects into my arm!

As I sat and waited the inevitable happened, my mind began to race through the scenes over and over again about what was about to happen; I literally had to force myself to think of trivial things to attempt to take my mind off of it.

Then her voice sung through the surgery silence... "Miss Culliford-Whyte."

I jumped out of my seat nearly knocking the adjacent one over, I greeted the nurse and began talking at her at about 120mph, explaining how I'd filled all the forms out, I have my immunization records, I don't think I have TB and if it was okay to leave now? 

She of course registered my nervousness and was so lovely and gentle. She reviewed all of my documents and agreed that I wasn't a high risk TB carrier (or however she termed it!) Great, I thought, I can go now then. 

Then she proceeded with the frightful three letter word... "But..."

There it was. I shuddered.

"You are way over due your boosters, it was meant to be administered in 2008, they only last 10 years. It's not bad, there's nothing wrong with you, but you'll still need to have it."

"Now? Like today? As in, you're going to do it right now?" I responded.

"Well, yes?" She replied, "Don't worry I'll be quick and gentle."

I never believe it when they say that, but she was actually true to her word.

Now, if you know me, or perhaps you may have gathered from this post, I generally don't respond well to needles, in fact I've been known to pass out a number of times, well, practically every time it happens! And this time I was by myself, in a completely different country, in a surgery I've never been to before, with a nurse I don't know and most importantly with no one's hand to crush. 

So, all in all it went well. She gave me some apple juice since my face drained of any possible pale colour it had in the first place and she told me to sit down for a few minutes before leaving. Of course I was reluctant to stay any longer than necessary in a room of such objects, so I politely excused myself and jokingly said good-bye with a wish to not have to see her again. I bounced too enthusiastically out of that room only to then have to quickly scoot to the bathroom so I could sit on the floor for a further 15 minutes to try to stop feeling woozy.

Okay, so it wasn't a completely smooth experience. But, I think it's still one to be proud of. I had my first injection all by myself, and for once I didn't pass out either! Result.

I'm hoping to adventure around the local town some more this weekend, and next weekend I'll be heading to Chicago, so watch out for some more stories! (Hopefully some pictures too!)

From Cheryl your Belonephobic.

Six Flags

Hello!

This weekend was Labor weekend, so we had Monday off (long weekends FTW!)

So, what do you do when you have a long weekend? You take a spontaneous road-trip to a theme park, oh yes!

Me and this lovely group of friends from church here headed up north towards Chicago (I saw the city skyline for the first time, it's wonderful!) to go and explore the 6 flags theme park.

It was SO much fun!

To ease me into the experience of American roller-coasters, my friends thought that the 'Raging Bull' would be a good place to start...

Now I like roller-coasters, but this was a beast! It was actually terrifying, although by the end of the day we'd been on it about 3 or 4 times, it's such a thrill!

We went on all sorts, the Batman was fun because you were kind of underneath the track if that makes sense; Superman was great too since they tilted you like you were flying, it was similar to Air at Thorpe Park if you've been there!

There was a backwards wooden one, called Viper, which I certainly didn't like, it was rickety and bumpy and well, just generally scary even though it was far from the biggest ride there!

My favourite one was perhaps Xflight, because it was really smooth and interesting because you were on either side of the track, so it felt more like you were flying!

I also tried an American treat called Dippin' dots. They're really cool and weird, it's basically ice-cream that's been frozen somehow into like little round BB gun pellet things, they spoon a mound into a plastic cup and you scoop them up; they taste just like ice-cream but have a different beginning consistency!

I'll include some links to YouTube of the crazy roller-coasters I experienced if you fancy a view!

Cheryl

P.s some of the voice-overs/screams in these YouTube videos are hilarious... enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MlXkF85e7A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miwGyYCy-yw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM8DxuEoCrc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPpne1qsK94