We would like to share the memories of our wonderful vacation with all of you, especially those far away. This is work in progress, and will probably be updated frequently in the next days. View from car 31 of the new ICE3 Cologne-Frankfurt Prolog, Oct. 18

I wanted to start off my vacation with a front-row ride in the new ICE3. Unfortunately it did not quite work out, as the sales agent forgot that this a train actually composed of two trains. If you would like to take a train with a view: Reserve Car 21, Seats 11, 13, 15 or 17. 		Day One, Oct. 19

Around 9.00h we made our way to Frankfurt International. Although we were there early enough, we had no time for sightseeing. The Bundeswehr Tae Kwon Do Team was checking in with us, and nowadays security measures take their time too. But little did we know..
UA 941 was ready to take us to Chicago!
Steffi in front of a Boeing 777, Flight UA 941 to Chicago The flight was pleasant, but I am not used to coach anymore... watched K-19, good movie.
They say that getting through Immigrations Control takes as long as flying to the US, and it almost seemed that way. While the INS Officer was friendly, we had stood in line forever it seemed. Then we transfered from the O'Hare International Terminal to Terminal 1, and in addition to being late already, we had to pass security again.		 After we had taken off our shoes, demonstrated that the laptop was real we were clear to find that our plane to Orlando had left without us. The Customer Service Desk told us, the next flight to Orlando would leave in about three hours, around 7:00 PM. This also happened to be the last flight of the day down there, and it happend to be fully booked. Fortunately we were able to wait in the lounge. With snacks and drinks we waited for the sun to set, and to see if we would get seats.
We would not know to the last minute whether we would fly to Florida this day... and we would not, the flight was full and all passengers showed up. After cancelling our hotel in Lakeland, FL and our rental car, we tried to find out what happens next. United took the stand that it wasn't their fault we missed our connection, but I countered that it wasn't our fault either. We found a compromise in the way of a very good rate for the Chicago Airport Hilton.
Day Two, Oct. 20

So our vacation started off a little different than we had expected. But or first hotel was nothing spectacular anyway, and I had booked it halfway between Orlando Airport and St. Petersburg, our next step. So the next day I contacted our friends the Maddens, namely Jerry Sr. and Jerry Jr. Unfortunately Jerry "the younger" was out of town, but he gave us good advice: Public Transport would get us into Chicago cheaply, and we had confirmed seats to Florida at about 		2:30 PM. So instead of sitting around at the airport all day, we decided to take "the L" into downtown, which took 40 minutes one way, and cost us $1.80 each. In Mainz, that does not even get you from Steffi's apartment to the station.
We picked up as many tourist flyers as we could, but as neither of us had been to Chicago before, we still had no real idea where to go. One of the very few places sounding familiar was the "Richard J. Daley Center". After all, I still knew the dialogue from the movie 		"The Blues Brothers"by heart:

Elwood: If my estimations are
   correct, we should be very close
   to the honourable Richard J.
   Daley plaza.
Jake: That's were they got that
   Picasso?
Elwood: Yep.

But it seems that all I need to know, I learned from the movies. Chicago had a real surprise ready for us: Chicagoween!

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