Day 28, 14th September 2011. Chicago - Erie, Pennsylvania.

Today was another nothing day pretty much. Gary had overslept AGAIN, so I had to go wake him up so we could get breakfast, which was free at the hostel we were staying in. I had a yoghurt because there wasn't much there, and then we got all our stuff together for a day of driving in the van.

Gary and his love Daniel, sleeping in the Van

We drove in 4 states toay, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It was a very long day in the van, I was really into reading the Hunger Games so it wasn't too bad.

A random city, I think it was Cleveland, Ohio.

We arrived at camp at 5.30pm and me and Gary went straight to do some laundry and have showers. Dinner was ready soon after, and my group was on dishes. Afterwards, I wet back down to the laundry room with Gary and we folded the clothes, and then me and Abby played ping pong because there was a random ping pong table in there.

For the rest of the night we just sat around camp chatting and enjoying being together because half of the group were finishing the tour in New York.

We had this stuff that made the fire go all colorful

We made smores too

 And of course Gary and Dan had a little dance

We went to bed to bed at about 11pm, and could hear loads of rain falling on the tent as we were falling asleep. We obviously didn't know it at the time but this was the last time we would have a night around the campfire, as the new group that we got was quite different, so I'm glad we all sat around together on this night.

Day 27, 13th September 2011. Chicago

Well I don't think I really got any sleep at all. I was so drunk I just kept tossing and turning in bed in a half sleeping state. At about 9am me and Shannon got out of bed and got ready because we were meeting the boys at 10am to go and see the city. I didn't feel hungover at all at this point, the drunkness was gone but it was definitely too early for the hangover to kick in. At about 10.05 we knocked on the boys door and unsurprisingly they were still asleep! They got ready and we left the hostel at about 10.30am.

We started looking for somewhere to have breakfast, but couldn't find anywhere because the boys were being fussy about where, and Gary kept going on about baked beans which of course no where had. After about 2 hours of confusedly walking around we decided it was too late for breakfast and decided to make it lunch instead.

After getting lost a few times, we ended up in Johnny Rockets. The hangover was starting now, so it tasted good at first but then I just ended up feeling really sick. The burger was really good though, me and Gary had only had Johnny Rockets once before, in Mexico, and it was awful, so real American Johnny Rockets is so much better! We also had milkshakes which were amazing, that probably made me feel sick even more now that I feel about it.

The most exciting part of the day in Chicago was going to the top of the Willis (Sears) tower. At 108 storeys it is the tallest building in North America.

The views from the top were so pretty. It was really cool because they had glass floors that you could walk out onto. I really thought it was good, but people who are scared of heights would hate it! Gary even said it made him feel a bit weird, but I loved it.

While we were up there my hangover finally came. I felt so sick. I needed to go to sleep but I insisted that I wanted to go to Forever 21 first. So we got a taxi to Michigan Avenue so I could go shopping. It didn't go very well, I was feeling sicker every minute and there was nothing I wanted in Forever 21 (that's a first) but I did find a bag just as we were leaving, because I felt I had to buy something. It was clearly a good idea because I am still using that bag today.

We then got a taxi back to the hostel and when we got back to the room Kirsty was laying in her bed so we chatted for a while, then I went to have a shower and tried to have a sleep for a few hours but my body just didn't want to sleep so I just snuggled in bed and read some more of the Hunger Games book that Loz had given me.

Eventually I started to feel a bit better, and at about 6.30pm the whole group met up to go to Hooters for dinner. It was ok, the food wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be, but that could have been because I still felt ill. It was a nice meal though with everyone there, and we all (well the girls) got to get our Hooters tops.

I don't normally like cities, but Chicago was a really nice place, definitely somewhere I could live. I wish I could have got to experience more of it and not feel so sick, but thats the price we paid for drinking so much the night before. It was totally worth it though, they are some of my best memories. A few people were going out again tonight and there was no way I could manage that though, Gary went out which upset me because even though I felt to sick to go out, I didn't want him to go and have fun without me. Anyway I cried a bit then got over it because I was so tired.



Day 26, 12th September 2011. Wisconsin - Chicago

This is a long one but it was the best night ever!!

Alarm wet off at 8am and we started packig out stuff away and getting organised. We didn't even bother trying to eat breakfast because we were feeling sick and hungover from last night. When we met up with the group everyone had lots of funny stories from last night. Abby and Loz had found Aaro chasing animals through the campsite in the middle of the night, LOL.

We got in the van and made our way to Chicago! At one of our stop offs on the way Gary decided that we should get some Burger King because we hadn't eaten anything, it was a bad idea, it just made me feel really sick.

When we got to Chicago, we went straight to the hostel where we were staying. This was the first place where we were staying that I wouldn't be in the same room as Gary, which was so weird. We had a girls room and a boys room. When we got to our room we realised there were only 6 beds and there were 7 of us, so we had to get the boys to swap rooms with us because they had 8 beds and there were only 5 of them. We had showers and got ready, Loz had finished her Hunger Games book and gave it to me so I could start to read it. We met everyone downstairs at 5pm to go out.

Our room

We walked down to a pizza place for dinner to get a Chicago deep dish pizza. I was really excited to try it but it was horrible, I didn't like it at all.

Once we had finished eating we got a taxi down to the place where we were renting bikes. The place was called Bobby's Bike Hike and it was so much fun! We got there and all out our bikes which all had their own names and got our helmets on.

The bike ride was so much fun! I couldn't ride my bike properly at first, but after about 5 minutes I got the hang of it. It was such a good way to see the city, we all really enjoyed it. We went along the waterfront and got to see loads of sights around the city, lots of big buildings and other stuff. We stopped quite a few times to take pictures. No one wanted me to ride my bike near them because apparently I was 'dangerous' at bike riding.

After the bike ride we got taxi's back to the hotel, and got ready to go out. This ended up being the most fun night we have ever had. We went to a duelling piano bar called Howl At The Moon and we just had such a good time.

We got loads of these huge bucketsof cocktails. Me, Shannon and Caroline had so many of them. There was one point that me and Shannon came away from the bar with $100 worth of them!

The blue drink had loads of Tequila in it, I drank way too much of it!

We had the best time, just singing and dancing and drinking, it was such a good night:)

We ended up being kicked out of that bar because some people started throwing ice at eachother, so we went into another bar across the road.

We met a lady in the bathrooms called Barbara Martine from LA and she was so nice, we chatted to her for ages.

At about 3am we decided to go back to the hostel. We lost Shannon and Kirsty, so it was just me, Gary, Aaron, Daniel and Leah, so we got a taxi back.

Aaron trying to plank in the lift

Daniel also trying to plank

Said goodight to the boys and arranged to meet them in the morning and wet back to our rooms. Just as I was climbing up my bunk bed I heard a knock at the door and fell down. This woke Caroline up and we were both laughing so much. It was a good job Kirsty had so much stuff on the floor because otherwise I would have got hurt.

It was Shannon at the door and we were so drunk at this point that we decided to go and wake the boys up. We had a really funny hour or so messing around and being really drunk in the hostel. I don't know how we didn't get in trouble because we were so loud! The night ended with Aaron pretending to be a cat on the floor.

Me and Shannon finally got in bed at about 4.30am. We didn't sleep really though because we kept laughing all night. This really was the best night ever, we will always remember our crazy night in Chicago!!