When I emerged from the subway station Chicago greeted me with a cold cold wind. I have never been colder in my life, walking the streets in the middle of the day in negative 5 degrees and battling the freezing wind. Last night after the ice hockey, where I saw the Chicago Blackhawks beat the LA Kings 3-0, it was snowing and hasn't stopped yet. We went down to Lincoln Park where the free zoo is and everything was blanketed in a thick layer of snow. You probably don't need to be told that most of the animals weren't frollicking in the snow.

Besides the freezing weather Chicago is an awesome city. It's fairly big but not overwhelming. We've probably covered most of it. The streets are very long and one street in particular, Michigan ave, is referred to as 'Magnificent Mile' where all the designer shops and expensive restaurants are. It's lovely to walk down and window shop but not great to look at the prices. The 'cool' area though, is down at Wicker Park, which could sort of be compared to Fitzroy and Brunswick street. Here we found some trendy cafes and bars and vintage stores, where I bought a few bits and peices for more affordable prices. We spoilt ourselves with a lovely Spanish tapas style dinner and ran out after leaving only a $4 tip. (The tipping is very hard to get used to). Apart from that we have been eating lots of hotdogs and Chicago style deep-dish pizza, not the healthiest but very tasty (and an improvement from all the fried chicken).

The first night we arrived we decided to go to a small bar, which was difficult to find as it was in a quiet part of town just outside the city and was around what appeared to be some old abandoned warehouses. Once we found it though, it was very cool and we watched a Melbourne band called Love of Diagrams play. Coming half way around the world to see a Melbourne band play is quite amusing in retrospect. But apart from the barman staring me down without me realising cos I had forgotten to tip him, the night was a lot of fun.

When I was little I was a huge Wizard of Oz fan so when I saw that a musical called "Wicked', about the untold story of the two witches of Oz, was playing at the Oriental theatre I really wanted to go. We put our names in for a lucky draw where we could purchase tickets for $25 if we won. And my name was drawn! We had terrible seats but the theatre was not full so we moved to an awesome view. It was very entertaining and a fun night, hopefully you will all see it in Melbourne soon.

As for me, my next show will be at Broadway in New York City!