The drive out of Chicago is a bit of a blur. We got going early (or early-ish, we’re not exactly morning people), and since our visit to Chicago had been so rushed decided to drive through some of the neighborhoods to the North of the city instead of getting directly on the freeway. It still amazes me how far some of our cities sprawl. You still felt like you were in the middle of the city 30-40 minutes outside the city center! There were some awesome apartments – I am obsessed with little balconies with window boxes, and there were so many to look at. Even amongst a row of cookie-cutter construction you’d see a gorgeous building with amazing detail. Eventually the cute shops and restaurants and buildings with rooftop decks perched atop them gave way to small, squat buildings that must be in a predominantly Romanian community. How I know that? Well, aside from the Romanian churches and Little Bucharest restaurants, there was also an office for the Romanian Liberal Democratic Party on one street. Interesting.

We got a call from Nick’s dad as we were getting out of Chicago area. He and a few of his friends came over from SA for the Oshkosh airshow, which is where we were headed to meet up with them. They were renting cars and driving from Chicago, but didn’t have directions to the house they’d rented…we luckily had Ted, so we sent them a few directions via SMS, and headed our on way. We knew immediately that we were in the right place when we took the exit to Oshkosh and saw tents, RVs and airplanes stretched out on every grassy area available. It is incredible how many people are here! We arrived about about hour ahead of Nick’s dad (thanks to Ted), and spent a little time catching up with our ‘homework’ (trying to keep track of expenses, doing a bit of writing, etc). We were glad when they finally arrived – we had worried that perhaps we didn’t have the right address, and someone would come home from work and ask us what the hell we were doing sitting on their porch drinking a few beers. That would be a bit awkward to explain!