An Island in the Sea.

"Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
  so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning"

Chicago. The vibrant metropolis. The pulsating heart of the Midwest. The place where dreams are born.

After a never ending drive through what now can only be described as the endless wasteland of Wisconsin and Illinois, she slowly rises on the horizon. Her towers growing to touch the sky, her lights illuminating the darkness, and her unique music making sweet promises of excitement and adventure. You swear that you can almost touch the energy that lies in the air and takes a hold of you when you walk down her streets. I find it almost impossible to describe the surreal effect that seeing Chicago for the first time had on me, but just try to imagine driving down an infinite highway embedded with cornfields and flat countryside and then, all of a sudden, without warning, out of the void grows the gigantic city that is Chicago. An island in the sea. It will blow your mind.

I have always enjoyed exploring a city at night. Somehow I feel that everything looks more mysterious, more promising at night, like the city is revealing her true self, after being stripped naked from the buzzing activity of the day. So while I was walking towards the bus that was to lead me to my couch in the south side, I just could not help it to stop and gaze with amazement at the buildings and the long canyons that are cut by streets in between the skyscrapers. I was just so stoked and excited to be in this amazing place, that I felt like nothing else mattered as long as I could just be there, be in the moment. Luckily this was only the beginning of my stay.

Go Do Good

That night I was just really grateful that once again someone was willing to open their home to me, to offer me a place to stay and to share their food with me. It truly amazes me how many great people you meet when traveling and how much kindness you encounter everywhere. I really hope that I will have the opportunity to give back all the good experiences and memories I have made when traveling and couchsurfing. I believe that couchsurfing makes this world a better place by bringing people together, sharing whatever they have to offer. And we all have something to offer.

After a good nights sleep and some food in my stomach I was prepared to go out and explore Chicago. Due to a lack of time and the opportunity to see it all, I decided to just walk down the streets in order to get an idea of what this place felt like. Believe me or not, but if you wander aimlessly and let your feet decide where to take you, you learn a lot more about a place compared to heading towards one tourist attraction after another. So I ended up going to the beach, seeing some beautiful parks, looking at a lot of interesting architecture and strolling through some quiet neighborhoods. Chicago is a really diverse city and all the areas I explored had a distinct feel to them. There is the loop with its tall buildings, its buzzing streets and its endless stream of people rushing towards an unknown destination. When heading north you pass some beautiful residential buildings that interestingly enough host a mixture of old hippies, young families and a lot of yuppies. All of this is surrounded by cafes, bars and restaurants that lead you to lincoln park, a gigantic strip of greenery right next to Lake Michigan. Here you can spend the day enjoying the sun on the beach, listening to live music, and eating hotdogs while looking at the skyline of downtown. A perfect and magical place to end my day in Chicago.

Now after two amazing days in Chicago I am riding the bus once more, going west, going to Nebraska. I don't even know what exactly I feel now that I am going back to the place where I spend the 6 months of my young life that had such a profound impact in shaping the person I am today. I guess I am just excited to see it again, to meet my old host family, to catch up and to just relax for a couple of days. So now I'm riding down the street, into the sun, towards my past., excited to see what I discover there.