Last day in Chicago before I have to go home to work. Again it is raining – OK, more like a drizzle. What to do on the last day of the holidays? Shopping. Nothing big, mostly window shopping. When I still had the plans for renting a car, I found a great outlet center outside of Chicago. Unfortunately, now it is 2 hours drive by train, bus and taxi away. And it is 20 USD one way. No! Not happening. But… I found a smaller outlet center inside the area where I can get by CTA ticket. So just taking the red line to the Loop, and then the blue line towards the airport.

On stop before the airport I have to change onto a bus. The center has its own small buses, connecting the “L” to the hotel, cinema, convention center and the outlet. And the bus doesn’t cost a dime. Great. The center is in a boring building without windows, directly connected to a parking garage. 2 Floors of shops. Not many people here. If you need shoes, clothes and much other stuff, you might get a deal or two here. Since I don’t need much, I just buy some socks (I know, boring) and a pizza baking tray from LeCreuset (which was a really good deal compared to Norway). Not the normal stuff you buy on a holiday. 😀

Since there it mot much more in the center, same bus back to the “L” and a ride downtown. There is a shop for clothes I go to every time I am in the US. Very nice store (did I mention i started raining again?) which I leave with two shirts and some sweatpants. So much for shopping in the USA. Used enough money anyway.

I am at the end of the magnificent mile, which is the main shopping street in downtown Chicago. Again nothing to buy here, but window shopping has it’s charm. I have one estination and that is the Crown fountain. I have my “Last day of my holiday” Geocaching event there. SO I am walking a mile. On the way, exactly 24 hours before my SAS flight should leave from Chicago, I get an SMS and Mail from SAS. Even with the strike over last night, They will not make the flight to Chicago with the plane. So I am booked onto another flight (and I wanted to test the SAS Business class… that’s why I returned from Chicago.) Finnair business class via Helsinki to Oslo and then with the late flight to Molde. Not arriving later then planned, but my Airport Express ticket for Stockholm is now useless and instead of enjoying 8 hours of Gamla Stan, I will enjoy 7 hours of Oslo airport… not a good exchange. But I got my business class.

I am a little bit early. There are 5 people (plus me) at the event. 3 locals and 2 German tourists. The usual chat about traveling, geocaching and tips and tricks for caches in Chicago. No rain! We are lucky. We decide to try to take a virtual cache close by, which i a little bit tricky. We are out of luck. The area where you can solve the cache is closed for a private party. One of the locals will send us the answers since it is not our fault, that we cant see the final tile.

After that I buy dinner at a middle eastern fast food restaurant (which was recommended by Yelp – and is good). Time to get home to get package no. 2 from the Amazon pick up store. A part to put my DJI Osmo pocket to a mount. Easy as before, and again an Uber to the hostel.

There is only one thing to do tonight… packing for the tip back home tomorrow.  My holidays come to an end.