Chicago - What a Town!!

Today we met our Chicago Greeter, Wally and he showed us around this beautiful city.  It reminded us very much of Adelaide with its parks, culture and grid like set out.  The entire city burnt down in 1871  - except for the water tower building - so when it came to rebuilding, architects from all over the world came in and built buildings that are amazing and the city was built up again with lessons learnt from the past so it is a really functional city.  Apparently it has undergone another major transformation in the last twenty years.  We were really surprised by how beautiful it is and the people are really friendly.  We had full on conversations with people on buses and walking down the street.  Very unusual for America.  Wally took us to see were Oprah does her show and a group of people were coming out.  They had just been to a taping of the show and were so thrilled to have done it.  We looked around the Oprah Shop and had our photo taken outside Harpo Studios.  Wally said he had never met anyone who had been to a taping of the show so it was a first for him too.  We left Wally and caught the bus back into The City and went 96 floors up the John Hancock Building.  OMG it was swaying!!  We have been up many towers but that is the highest by far.  The Sears Tower has a glass floor jutting out from the building but we didn't do that.  We wish we had more time here but tomorrow we fly to New York.  We have been staying at The Palmer House Hilton - very nice.