I left my heart in San Fran-Chicago

Today’s post brought to you by: the drifting snow

Grateful for: Google maps finding me magical free things to do downtown Chicago

Trying hard to accept: adios beloved city

It’s 7am. It’s snowing. I’m in a café watching the increasingly whitewashed world outside.

I’ve got half the Chicago Tribune (thankfully the crossword; thankfully not the sports section), a warm flaky lemon and blueberry scone, a hot coffee and a pair of jeans straining at the seams.

All, most, is right with the world.

Thanks to a kick-start from Laura am making a list of travel writing publishers.

Have made a momentous decision.

Momentous!

After 44 years – assuming I wrote my first sentence at 6 – I’m going to finally go all out to get paid to write things.

Not things that’ll linger in some government department’s archives till Y3K, but things that make people laugh.

Not blogging – that won’t pay the bills, and let’s face it, technology and I will never be having coffee dates and sleepovers – but something published.

In the meantime I need to get a job – any job – to pay for shoes to walk off 6kg that have mysteriously appeared on my thighs.

It’s time to finally do something that’ll make me happy. And not just make do.

As I sit here and read Radio NZ’s list of the people – just like me – who died on White Island – I know it’s time to [insert cliché] and do it.

Whack on 5 hours.

You’ll never guess where I am now. The magnificent ginormous Chicago Public Library listening to the Leo Catholic High School choir singing Christmas carols.

Oooohh they’re doing a 3-part harmony of O Come All Ye Faithful.

Flippin’ ‘eck, I’m holding back the tears. Failed.

Not bad. Not bad at all for somewhere downtown that is (in order of importance): warm, free, interesting, safe and free wifi-ed.

Soon it’ll be time to walk down the street to the equally magnificent ginormous Union Station and get the 8-hour train to Minneapolis.

Here’s what’s on the lunch and dinner menu. It’s amazing what you can whip up in your apartment with a trip to the supermarket and leftovers from previous guests:

• Tuna sandwiches on best 7-grain bread ever
• Apple
• Kale chips
• Chicken, mustard* and mayo*
• Balsamic* roasted veg
• Almonds and walnuts
• Sparkling water*

* Courtesy of Amtrak/Erik

Total cost: $3.87

Yesterday I consulted Google maps for somewhere new to explore and found 3 of my favourite things in one place a few blocks north: historic church, Salvation Army thrift store and supermarket.

It was a low-income Middle Eastern neighbourhood. The gigantic (is there any other sort?) Catholic church fought for space with mosques, African food stores and pawn brokers.

What? It’s free?

Fare impazzire! Wielki success! I’ve never seen anything like Cermak Fresh Market.

Opened 40 years ago by Dimitrious “Jimmy” Bousis and Pantelis “Pandelo” Tzotzolis, it stocks every imaginable fresh, packaged and frozen food item from Greece, Italy, Russia, Belarus (why not?), Turkey, Poland, Mexico, Puerto Rico and all other bordering nations.

Took 20 minutes just to walk round the fruit and veg bit. Mind you, half that was spent looking over my shoulder for men in blue aprons ready to pounce on my phone.

For the sake of Pulitzer-winning photography I ignored threats to set their Italian/Russian/Mexican/Chicago-an mafia mates on anyone who dared to take a shot. (Like the shot that’d go through your bedroom window if they caught you).

Vast is one word for the produce section. Cheap is another. (And if I keep eating like this I’ll be both).

39c/lb for sweet potatoes. It made Wellington’s fruit and veg markets look like Harrod’s food hall.

52 minutes later I made it to the deli. You know how Europeans like their cured meat and cheese? Well it just went on and on and on. Like moi.

There must’ve been at least 860 dead pigs there in one form or another.

Then there was the incredible bakery. Where a couple of syrupy Greek pastry samples might’ve slithered down my throat.

Apparently you cook these. Presumably in the old bathtub in the back yard. Not even 12,000 sq ft American homes have kitchens that big.

You also cook these. Peeling them would be the ideal job for that irritating in-law you’re forced to invite for dinner.

Home again to defrost then back out to explore more of my neighbourhood.

One of my favourite quotes – on one of the many neighbourhood book exchanges on these middle-class, educated streets.

It was so bitterly cold that my jeans froze and then pricked my legs. I have no idea how the homeless survive.

Despite wearing 6 layers and forcing my legs to move faster and faster I still had to duck inside every 10 minutes so I could move my hands and face again.

For someone who hates shopping, have never been so glad to wander the aisles.

Am now something of an expert on Christmas trees. I don’t know if the prices round there were inflated but I almost bought a chainsaw and went into business after seeing what they charge.

And they’re fir which means they don’t even smell like Christmas trees. Give me an uneven, needle-dropping pine any day.

Guess how much a 10ft tall fir costs?

• $29.99 (did you not read what I just said?)
• $1,400 (good guess but wrong)
• $1.99 (no, I was not in Dollar General)
• $699 (correct!)

And that’s only for the tree. Then you have to shell (or cone) out for the skirt thing, a bucket (now that you can get from Dollar General) and $1,764 worth of decorations.

Or, $5,742 in the shop I went into.

It was simply the most beautiful shop I’ve been into. Exquisitely tasteful decorations, scented candles, homewares and gifts from all over the world.

At those prices you’d want to hang the decorations on the tree all year, even after the tree had long died.

I slathered myself in French hand cream, including lining my $1.99 gloves with it. Every so often I get a whiff of it. Am never going to shower again.

Then at the other end of the expenditure scale, but equally as wonderful, I found an antique store in the uber-priced Andersonville.

Would’ve bought the whole store if Qantas wasn’t so stingy with baggage allowances because it was all so cool and so cheap.

Bought this 60x40cm photo for $3.50 simply because I liked it.

His sister was there too but she got left on the shelf. I know how she feels.