Beans, Loops, Deep Dishs, Buckets, Marathons, Sororities, Parades, Lakes, Zoos, and Baseball

After surviving another night 'Hound we arrived fairly fatigued but we soon cheered up with an excellent hostel both in feel and location and the prospect of a free pasta meal for all the Chicago Marathon runners, which we quickly became. This gave us the energy to meet up with some friends we had met in Boston and DC for a few 'buckets of beer' at the local watering hole...This led inevitably to a nice lie in before exploring Chicago Zoo (great free zoo that included a Polar Bear and some penguin friends for Claude), Lake Michigan (free walk around the 3 largest of the Great Lakes, no naked dip this time, sorry ladies...), the John Hancock Tower the 2nd highest point in town (also free if you quickly take photos and don't buy a drink) and finally the world of Deep Pan Pizza. Now most of you will have had some sort of 'Chicago Town Deep Dish Pizza', trust us this is not the same! After waiting a while for a table we were sooo hungry we ordered a 12'' (enough for 3-4 people according to the menu, but we didn't believe), it was however so ridonkulously filling Steve only manage half of his half (also known as a quarter) and I faired little better. It is more like a Pie than a Pizza but delicious all the same, even when taken home and had cold for lunch the next day!
Our last day involved a gentle stroll round the finanicial district, a trip around 'The Loop', the 'Bean', a watch of the Columbus day parade which was little better than the Bognor Illumination Carnival. We then headed to Slugger's Bar and Grill where for $1 you can go in the Baseball batting cages and face anything up to 80 MPH pitches with no protective equipment, great fun! On the way back we were 'dragged' into a sorority (female fraternity) party which was so rubbish we had to stay till the small hours, drink lots of beer and get to know the girls...