Sightseeing in South French Way

We would wake up after everyone else had left the room. We got a similar body clock.
By the time we go out, we always ended up starting a day from finding a place to have a late lunch then headed to downtown Chicago for some sightseeing.

After we had a heavy lunch, we were walking to downtown. When we were walking in a park, suddenly, Jennie got excited.

"Mariko, look! There is a apple tree!!" She pointed the tree with a bunch of small apples.

"Apple is really good for digestion. We should eat it!" She picked some apples from the tree and started to eat. I was too full to eat anything.

She demanded to stop in a cafe almost every 3 hours. She said she needed to hydrate regularly and rest every once in awhile.

When we went to a supermarket, she picked up a cherry from a pile on the shelf and ate it.

"...!?" I was not able to understand what she was doing and got a little nervous.

"In France, you can pick and eat fruit to taste at a supermarket." She explained. I didn't even want to bother to say "But we are not in France, are we?"

At the art institute of Chicago, we saw a bunch of French people around us in the museum. She would stay quiet and listened to their conversation in French carefully.

"They must be from Paris. They are very snobbish but uneducated. Those people even don't know who Renoir is!!"

When I saw the painting by Renoir, "Two Sisters On the Terrace", I was moved. I used to have a poster of the painting in my room when I was in Tokyo and yearned to see the original painting here. Finally I was able to see the painting right in front of my eyes.

We entered Navy Pier at night. It is one of the most touristy places to visit in Chicago. There was a big Ferris wheel and a huge shopping mall on the pier. We encountered a live music concert outside. Jennie really liked the concert and wanted to stay there for awhile. But it was almost 11 pm and I was getting nervous about staying out so late there. I was warned not to stay outside after 8 pm in the US from my advisor at an English school in Japan.

"Jennie, I think we should go back to our hostel. It's kinda getting late."

"Nah, don't worry. We'll be alright. Look, there are so many people still here, having fun!"

".... right."

Her attention moved back to the concert, and started to move her body with the music.

I stood still with a nervous expression on my face. After awhile she noticed that I was not enjoying the concert with her.

"Alright. You look like you are really worried. We should go. You don't trust me."

"No, Jennie. I do trust you.... it's just, I've been told that I shouldn't stay out that late in the US when I was in Japan..."

"You know I've been in the US longer than you and when I say it is ok, you don't trust me?"

Regardless of my trust to her, I just felt uncomfortable staying out late in the US.

"OK, let's go." she said.

I followed her.

"You really reminds me of my younger sister. She is also really young and naive. You have to be strong, Mariko."

It must have been during a rush hour to take a bus from Navy Pier, we saw a bunch of fat & huge American tourists trying to squeeze into a buss. The scene was absolutely hilarious.

"Look at the fat American people trying to get into the bus. They make the bus look smaller!!" Jennie was standing by the bus station and couldn't resist staring at the bus.

We took another bus to go back to our hostel. On our way in the bus, we realized that we were in a wrong bus. So I approached to the bus driver and asked him if he was driving to Fullerton street.

"Excuse me, is this going to Fullerton?"

"What???"

"Is this going to Fullerton?"

"What???"

".... we need to go to Fullerton."

".... I have no idea whatcha' sayin'" The huge black driver couldn't understand my English at all.

Jennie broke in and said, "Excuse me Sir, we want to go to Fullerton street."

"Ah, Fulleeeeerton. This isn' goin' to Fullerton."

"What???? How can we get there then?"

"I'll let you get off here, so take the bus #11 at the bus station."

He stopped and let us get off the bus.

"Oh shit!!" Now Jennie looked very worried. I looked up a map to find out where we were.

"Put it back!!! Do not look at the map here. We'd look like tourists!!" Jennie shouted.

- Anywhere you go, "looking like a tourist" is a bad idea. It's true.

We looked at a bus schedule carefully. It seemed like the bus we needed to take was still running.

As soon as we got into the bus, we were both released.