Saturday September 26 (Chicago to Bryan)

I was up early again, this time to catch the train to Chicago and then on to Bryan. It was a good trip until we had to change tracks due to goods trains ahead, later we changed back again. This meant we were 25 minutes late, lol! I cannot grumble though as I managed to sleep for an hour and a half.

It was another beautiful day in Chicago so after leaving my bags in the lounge I set off to walk to Buckingham Fountain. I stopped for a Coffee along the way and bought a sandwich for lunch. 

I was so very disappointed as the fountain has been switched off, I guess I was not the only one though as there were many people around. I did see two wedding parties which I thought was quite appropriate given the reason for my visit.

I did pop into TCP via the web cam several times and Bones was asleep every time, lol! She is my TCP mascot and her picture is the TCP profile picture on Livestream.

I spent about three hours relaxing and wandering and then headed back in the direction of Union Station. I am not impressed with some drivers over here. Crossing the road on the little white man puts you at risk of being swiped by an impatient turning vehicle. As another guy crossing said "They are jerks!!", lol!!

I stopped for another coffee and ended up chatting to a Serbian lass, she is living in Chicago at present and working on her English. She is a much travelled person and has visited many European countries. She had two Samsung phones and both had run out of juice, one was very old! Finally, I tried plugging her charging lead into my Apple charger and it worked, she just needed to return a phone call. There was also a Canadian lass so it was quite an international table!

I then wandered back and decided to stop at the Elephant and Castle for some dinner. I had previously eaten here and enjoyed it, good food and not too expensive. I had a starter of the mini Yorkshire pies, yum, and then had Berry Crisp, followed by a Monte Carlo coffee. I should sleep on the rain to Bryan, lol!

Wow, and England lost to Wales in the rugby World Cup, makes it very interesting in that group, called the Pool of Death as one top team will fail to qualify for the quarter finals, Australia is the other team of note in that pool.

I finally wandered back to the lounge to wait for the train. On board I got my self settled and was making some bookings when one of the conductors came round and said I had to move to the car next door. Not much fun a noisy baby and the guy next to me insisted on spreading himself out, hence no sleep for me, lol!

The train was 36 minutes late arriving in Bryan at 2.16 am, thank goodness for good friends who are willing to come out at that time of the day to collect me!