I sleep well on the sofa of my hosts' apartment. The sun begins to shine in through the curtainless windows early, and I retrieve my Amtrak-geek eye mask to remain subconscious for a few more hours.
I rise and have some breakfast. One of my hosts has had to go to present a paper at university (on a Sunday as well... I am impressed). So when I walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water, I am greeted by the other host, who was out yesterday. We eat some cereal, drink some tea, and through the wonders of the Hospitality Club two complete strangers get to know each other over breakfast.
I re-pack, clean out my lunch boxes and make some instant pasta to take with me for tonight's meal. I'll be scrimping on food for as long as possible to maximise my budget, so it'll be a few more Sidekicks in tupperware until the taste of them makes my stomach turn.
I say farewell, and leaving the bathroom and kitchen hopefully as I found them, I head off. It's another beautifully warm sunny morning, with a fresh breeze that carries me back to Thorndale CTA station.
It takes about thity minutes to get downtown. I'm more than happy to peer out of the window as the train rides along the suburban elevated sections, looking down onto back yards and onto people's balconies. The architecture of this part of Chicago is much like the part of Montreal where I live: brick built three storey walk-up apartments, with leafy avenues and broad streets. This is an attractive city that is already demanding a second visit. From time to time I feel guilt for not doing this great place more justice by staying for longer, but I suspect it could get another stopover later in the year.
The tracks wind in between buildings, and at the first available transfer station, I cross to the brown line, which will keep me above ground and take me onto Chicago's famous downtown loop of 'el' tracks.
I ride as far as Adams and walk one block east to the Chicago Art Institute. I've decided that with just a couple of hours on my side in Chicago, it'll be better to do one thing properly that try to cram too much in. So I'm here, climbing the steps of this elegant museum.
And it's not just because I'm art lover. The clockroom here costs a dollar per item, but that's cheaper than leaving them at the station for a few hours (and I won't be checking them in). Plus, although the admission fees might seem a little steep when you walk in, take note of that small bit of writing under the list of tarifs. Yep, they're 'Suggested Donations'. So, my take on this is that if you can afford $10, you should pay it and feel proud for contributing to one of the best art museums in the USA. But if you're a penniless low-budget traveler like me, give them a dollar and promise to donate a Monet when you become rich and famous.
Not like they need another one, though, because the Insitutue has one of the best Impressionist collections in the world. If you have just one hour to spend, then spend it here, in the collection of rooms in front of you at the top of the main stairs. Impressionist art has become famous through poster prints on students' walls around the world: it's sophisticated, delicate, entrancing to look at, and immediate to comprehend. The finest examples of Impressionist art in North America can be found here, where you can see just how innovative the brush strokes of van Gogh, Seurat and Pissaro were. I was particularly taken by finally being able to see Monet's 'Poppy Field at Giverny' for the first time, and one wall is occupied in one room by the instantly recognisable 'Sunday Afternoon at la Grande Jatte' by Seurat. I float from room to room, spending as much or as little time as I please ignoring the description cards and getting sucked in by the paintings.
I would urge any visitor to a gallery such as this one to be brave, and not to attempt to do the whole museum at once. Choose five specific rooms on the plan, and stick to them. Spend an hour, and take your time. Growing up close to London, where virtually every major museum is completely free to the public, I have grown used to this strategy when visiting museums. Although a paranoia did kick in as the minute had turned on my watch, I resisted the urge to run amock, trying to see everything at once. There will be much more for me when I come to Chicago next time.
Before leaving, I did have one more famous work to hunt down. Tucked away in a side room at the back of the building, is Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks'. Nothing could have prepared me for the silence this painting brings with it. A stolen moment in a city diner is caught on canvas. Even though we are looking in to a brightly lit diner from the empty street, we can tell the room is quiet. Caught between moments, sentences and breaths, four people occupy a moment in time. It's a beautiful painting, even more stiking when you see it for real. The reproductions are good, but the sense of seeing it in it's natural habitat is even better.
*j*
After we have travelled an hour or two out of Chicago, the train has begun to settle into its rhythm. Passengers are stretching out, reading, dozing, watching movies on portable computers or reading books. We're barreling across the agricultural flatlands of rural Illinois, much the same as the parts of Ohio and Indiana that I passed through on Saturday morning. The sun is shining, and from my comfy chair in the Sightseering Lounge, the mid-west is looking gorgeous. For me, this landscape is still unearthly. Everything is different. Even though I've lived in North America for over six months, I'm still a little islander by heart. Save for the Fens of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, there is nowhere back home that is as flat and vast as these agricultural belts of North America.
The further west we go, the greener it gets. In the last twenty minutes or so before we cross the Mississippi, the fields thin out and the greenery suddenly gets denser. We're rolling through leafy forests, with fresh leaves sprouting on all the trees, breaking the bright sunshine that is falling through to the moist forest floor. Still bodies of water start to appear, and then almost without warning, the train slows and we rumble onto the 600 metre bridge that carries us across the Mississippi. At 3780km, I have to admit that this is one of the longest rivers I can said to have crossed at ground level. Although it's not as long as my trip will be...
It's sunny in Burlington, IA, but the once grand turn of the century five and six story industrial buildings in the town's small centre all appear vacant. Of the few shop units I see, several have 'For Lease' signs in their windows. Small town America is hurting bad: America is so used to the automobile that small centres of population simply can't rely on local business any more. Might as well hop in the car and drive 50km to a cheaper big box store. As we cross what looks like Burlington's Main Street, not one car waits either side of the level crossing for us.
The Sightseer lounge is the most famous part of a Superliner train. The top deck is opened up with extra deep windows, and small curved roof lights that flood the car with natural light, and a satisfying view of the tops of trees as we thunder through forests and along cuttings. Leatherette swivel seats and combined foot rests and pockets under the windows make for a very comfortable viewing car, and I happily spend an hour or two here as we head towards the Mississippi River, and the boundary between the states of Illinois and Iowa. My only complaint is the colour scheme of these largely unrefurbished cars. Brown may have been a hip and trendy colour in 1981, but that doesn't justify keeping so much of it in the lounger car. If you go down the narrow steps in the middle of the car, you'll find a small cafe with tables for snacks and drinks... good for postcard writing and meeting fellow coach class passengers.
At Galesburg, Illinois, I step outside into the sultry afternoon heat, and take a photograph or two. There is no longer any smoking accomodation on board this train, and it's soon easy to spot the regular crowd of addicts who beg the conductors to reveal when the next smoking stop will be. At each stop where we have a few minutes to let the train rest and make satisfying creaking sounds as hot metal cools, a little smokey crowd gathers close to the doors. I take a deep breath of rural Illinois air, and hop back on board, and we rumble onwards.
I collected my bags from the cloakroom of the Chicago Art Institute, and headed towards the station. I didn't have enough credit left on my transit card, so took the healthy but muscle-aching route by foot.
Whereas most trains in the east of the USA are operated by single level cars, all the long distance routes in the west are run using huge Superliner double deck cars. If you've never seen one, they certainly impress you as serious pieces of kit. Like other Amtrak stock, their exterior is shiny steel. You board in the centre of the car, through a door that is very close to track level. To your right are some toilets and changing rooms. On the left is a small area of lower level seating, sold at a slight premium to the upper level. A narrow staircase is also here, opposite a large luggage area. If you climb the stairs, you arrive on the main level of the car - the whole length of which is coach seating. As with all North American trains, the crew will turn all the chairs in the car to face the direction of travel: quite why this is I'm not sure, I personally prefer the perceived safety of sitting facing backwards. Maybe that would just be too European...
