Going to Chicago

We tried to start as early as possible from St. Paul today, but it was almost 12am before we took off towards Chicago. The total trip is about 650 km, mostly through the flat, forest- and countryside landscape of Wisconsin, along big roads as Interstate 94 and 90 with speed limits at 60mph. At 3pm we took off from I-94 and went down to Madison for dinner. We really liked that city, with not too big buildings and somehow an Europe kind of atmosphere. Dinner was cheap and good at the Noodle House (we didn't have noodles, but pasta), and the people we met here seemed slightly different from the Minnesota people in Minneapolis, although they all were nice and friendly at both places. We arrived in Chicago at 7.30pm. The last part of the road from the Illinois state border into Chicago was a toll road, with 4 or 5 toll plazas with a $.80, $1 or $1.60 charge. Traffic went really fast around Chicago, so we got to be highly concentrated when changing lanes, and some of the exits came really fast on us. We also learned that you should never rely on your GPS in citys like Chicago because the satelite reseption is poor between all the tall buildings. Luckily for us it was rather easy to find the way to Palmer House Hilton Hotel in the Loop, and we made our check-in without too much trouble. Later in the evening we had pizza at Giordano's, experiencing that one piece of a Chicago-style stuffed pizza is enough food for the rest of the day. Or week.