I picked up my bag as I had to and was so sure I would be able to drop it at Lufthansa's baggage drop no later than 6 AM. I was so wrong. The baggage drop didn't open until 12:15 PM. I asked a United Airlines service person if their would be a place downtown to store the suitcase but apparently there isn't a single place in Chicago that does that since September 11th. A little bit weird that Chicago took away all those options but Washington D.C. still has the option at the largest train station at least.
So now I had three choices, wait until the baggage drop would open, bring the suitcase with me and return to the airport to drop it to then head back in to downtown or dragging it along all day. I choose the middle alternative since it was pretty easy and cheap to go back and forth to the airport.
My plan for the morning when I would have the suitcase was to go down to Lake Michigan and have breakfast by the water and just enjoy the view. I took the train from O'hara airport at 5:45 AM and reached downtown 45 minutes later. I was not alone on the train even though it was early on a Sunday morning. Apparently there was a Rock&Roll marathon race downtown so getting off in the central part of the city walking down towards the lake a lot of the traffic was redirected because of the race. I could walk down to the water without any disturbances though except the heat! I thought it was hot in California, but the humid heat here beat the California dry heat. Was it ever hot! I was not happy that I had to drag my suitcase along with me. Getting breakfast from Starbucks and then finding a bench in the sunshine by the harbour where there was a bit of a breeze cheered me up a little bit. The sun was still, rising when I got down there. I walked a little bit along the lake trying to find shadow since I thought I would melt away otherwise. I found not a place in the shadow but a place with a bit more breeze and with a really nice view of the lake with sailboats and the skyscrapers downtown in the background. I ended up sitting there for about three hours until I could head back to the airport. By then clouds had also helped making it a bit cooler. I even got a few drops of rain on me.
The train!
Washington Station. Performances are allowed on the platforms here as long as they have a permit.
Breakfast with a view.
Very hot!
Part of downtown.
Quatchi with another part of downtown in the background.
This is for my mum. The sailboat to the right is called Mon Amie.
Another part of Chicago.
I tried hard on the jumping pictures today, it's difficult with a timer. This is the best one.
Walking back to the Blue Line I ended up walking through a pretty neat park, Millennium Park.
A walkway in the park.
Really nice walkway.
The kids just loved running around in the water coming down from these pillars.
Parts of downtown from the park.
Back at the airport dropping the bag was really easy. I had put the shoes I picked out in San Diego to make the suitcase weigh less back in and I didn't get any complaints this time even though the suitcase still was too heavy. So now I only had one carry-on bag to carry around in the humid heat.
That's all for Part 1. More later in Part 2.
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