Our road trip was coming to an end; we had to drop off our baby (a little Nissan sedan) at the Miami airport (I should note, safe and sound) and head off on our own to a new place – Chicago.

(Chicago vibes)

(In Chicago, this sculpture is called the Giant Bean. Although in reality, the author was trying to show a drop of mercury a moment before falling)

(Skyscrapers at night)

(we took a tour of the rivers and canals of Chicago)

Arriving in the city, we headed to the very center to the foot of what was once the tallest tower in the world - Willis Tower. Our new couchsurfing host, Sean, lived next to it. This time it was a fairly small apartment with two cats, Violet and Veruca (remember the gum-chewing girl and the spoiled daughter of the tycoon from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"?). When Sean found out that I was named after his cat, he immediately took a liking to the three of us.

(Veruca the cat)

For many, Chicago is associated with gangsters, Route 66, and jazz. But today, the famous route to California has been closed, the gangsters have remained in the decade of their heyday, and as for jazz, well, it is jazz. More alive than ever! For us, Chicago became the first skyscraper city. I had never seen so many high-rises per square meter before. The Willis Tower alone is worth it! Surely you have seen photos where people stand in transparent boxes with a glass floor, under which the city spreads out, where people and cars are like tiny ants.

Another hallmark of Chicago is its signature pizza. It looks like a pie with cheese on the bottom and toppings on top – a kind of quiche.

And of course, Chicago has a stunning gallery of modern art with famous originals of world masterpieces, where it is worth going at least for Van Gogh's "Starry Night".

In parting, Kristina baked Sean Russian pancakes with jam, which he devoured with pleasure, coming home from a nightclub at 4 a.m. Just at that time, we were packing our suitcases. Sean, finishing the last pancake, asked us: "Do you know which airport your flight is from?"

We hadn't even thought about the fact that there could be several airports in Chicago handling domestic flights. And then, literally a couple of minutes before leaving, it turned out that we had to go to the other end of the city – it was the wrong airport. We were incredibly happy about this, because if it weren't for Sean's concern, we would clearly have missed our flight due to inattentiveness.

But our morning worries didn't end there; things got even more interesting. Arriving at the newly designated airport, we discovered that we had mixed up the departure time – instead of 8 p.m., we showed up at 8 a.m. All those stupid AM and PMs that I didn't notice when buying tickets. In Russia, of course, this would hardly have happened; it's impossible to confuse 20:00 with eight in the morning even in a drunken stupor. But what were we, sober in America, to do? Going back to the city with suitcases (and remember, we had 6 of them!) seemed insane. Hanging out at the airport for those 12 hours? We probably would have killed each other out of boredom. But the most disappointing thing was the precious time we could have spent in New York, as we had planned.

The solution came to our heads quite quickly. I approached the check-in counter and began to beg the lady to let us fly earlier. She, having listened to our silly situation very carefully, without much surprise or indignation, checked in our luggage and sent it on the next flight to New York. She escorted us to the standby list and wished us luck. That's how things are done in America! Even if you miss your flight, the airline will take care of you and put you on some other flight, maybe with 4 layovers, but you will still get to your destination.

(at Chicago airport)

We didn't manage to fly on the first available flight. But on the second one, a couple of hours later, by some miracle, three empty seats appeared on the plane, which we successfully took and flew to a city that is impossible not to fall in love with.

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