Chicago - Part 4

After staying the night with Jono, we ate breakfast and hung out for a little before heading out to the train station. On the way we passed by Obama's house which was barricaded like a fortress, as was the synagogue across the street from his house...

Once we got downtown we walked past the Sears Tower and overheard a kid excitedly telling his parents that there wasn't a long line to go to the top of the Willis Tower. What a sad world this boy lives in, where the most he can get excited for is going up the Willis Tower, the tallest building in the city, and a shadow of its former self. I remember the grand old days of the 90's in which I would get excited for going up to the top of the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world.

I said goodbye to Jono and boarded the train for my very first train ride in the United States. It was very nice, but seemed rather slow. And though we continued to plod on at a constant pace down towards Champaign with very few delays, somehow the train managed to pull into the station half an hour late. This rather confuses me, as the bullet trains going all across Japan were totally on time. Clearly we need a batter train system here. It was actually a very nice ride. Much better than taking a bus or car.

Given that the sun has taken to setting that the ridiculously early hour of 4:00 PM as of late, pretty much the entire train ride was in the pith black of night. And it really was pitch black out the window. I had to take it on good faith that the universe outside the train still existed. A few texts helped convince me of that.