Most Russian students involved in the exchange were taken to Chicago by their host families during the family days at the end of July. As I arrived in the US several weeks later than the others, I went to Chicago in mid-August.
On the 13th of August (luckily, it was not a Friday) Barbara, her dad Horst, her siblings Andrea and Erik and me got up at 6:00 am and left Sun Prairie (a city in the Madison area) where we were staying with Barbara�s grandparents to go to Chicago. We arrived in Chicago at about 9:30 and were lucky enough to avoid the rush hour. Once we came to downtown Chicago, we had to find a parking space which turned out to be a practically impossible thing to do since all the parking ramps seemed to be full. While looking for a parking spot, we saw two enormous parking ramps 60 or even 70 floors high, which looked very much like corncobs! What surprised me a lot about them was that you had to park backwards there, which, I thought, must be very scary. Finally, we did find a parking space at the very top of a parking ramp not far from the Navy Pier.
So the Navy Pier was the first thing we toured, not because it was the nearest sight, I think, but because of my willingness to see Lake Michigan. All of a sudden for me, the Navy Pier turned out to be a long alley with a lot of souvenir shops, cafes and beautiful ships docked along. When we reached the end of the pier, we got a magnificent view of Lake Michigan. It was absolutely fantastic! I think I would have stayed there forever watching the sea gulls and taking pictures, but we had to go on with our tour.
We took a water taxi from the Navy Pier to the Aquarium, which we were going to visit, but there was such a long line in front of it, that we decided to go to the Field Museum of Natural History instead. There we visited an exposition of Sue, the most complete skeleton of tyrannosaurs rex ever found. I was totally impressed by its size, I could barely believe it was not a fake. After that we toured more expositions, like those of Ancient Egypt and Tibet, where I leaned some interesting facts about these civilizations.
As it was Monday, we had to leave the museum quite early, so we had enough time to tour a skyscraper. There are two famous skyscrapers in Chicago, the Sears and the Hancock. We decided to go up the Sears since it was closer. From the 103rd floor of the tower we got a breathtaking view of the city and Lake Michigan. I was really surprised by the fact that it was a block of cigarettes, which gave the architect the idea of the building. Later I learned that the Sears Tower is the second tallest building in the Northern Hemisphere after the twin towers in Malaysia.
After that, we went to Millennium Park; saw the famous Chicago Bean, which is really funny, as in fact it is a huge distorting mirror, and the majestic Buckingham Fountain. On the way to the parking ramp I caught a sight of night Chicago, which was even more beautiful than in the daytime. We left Chicago at about 8:30 pm, exhausted but full of impressions, especially me, since it was my first trip to Chicago. I enjoyed the whole trip a lot because Chicago is a beautiful city. I liked the magnificent architecture of Chicago and was especially impressed by the fact that despite the great number of skyscrapers in the city, they are all different. I am really grateful to my host family for helping make this trip memorable.

Lena Krylova