Sunday - home!

Hi. Well we are home! Wow, 26 hours flying: a 4.5 hour flight Chicago to LA, a 14.5 hour flight LA to Sydney, and a 3 hour flight Sydney to Chch. And 42 hours in the same clothes! But lovely to see everyone at the airport, great to see the sun and then afternoon tea at Mum and Dad's with everyone. A tea party and photos on the lawn with baby Hannah then after much chatter we sat down to a fab family meal - roast chicken, thanks Mum! - and then to bed about 9.00pm. Now up and about but waiting for luggage that didn't quite make it all the way to chch and trying to tidy up the receipts and paper work, do the washing and generally acclimatise back into life and a busy couple of weeks ahead. As Dad said, so great and exciting to go away, but wonderful to be home.
Thank you all for supporting me and following the GSE Journey. So many wonderful friends and stories to tell. No doubt most of what we've seen and done will sink in when we work on the scrap books!


P.S. The Team Blog is www.gseteam2008tochicago.blogspot.com


Naomi

Friday - Sound bites from our last week

The economy.
In the last ten days of our trip, issues surrounding the economy have really come to the surface, especially with the government’s multi billion dollar pay out, It seems fear has really started to kick in. In our first few weeks, we drove past half finished subdivisions, and empty houses, and we saw for sale signs and mortgagee signs and we talked about it, but it seemed everyday Joe Blogs was unaffected. By this last week the everyday Joe Blogs we were staying with were personally affected! Our hosts, just hours before we left for the airport were inviting their son home for the weekend to talk about his application for medical school. They’d just lost his college fund and he might have to consider applying for a different college now. Another host, her son was about to buy a car. The car yard at the eleventh hour said they were unable to loan any money. Student loans might even be affected for the following semester.
As I sat waiting to go to the airport I read an article about the new homeless. Apparently tens of thousands of Americans are now spending each night sleeping in their cars in covered car parks. One woman stays in her 4WD with her dogs each night, up until a few months ago, she owned two properties, both about $2 million each. She was unable to sell them, and unable to make the $10,000 month mortgage repayments so she declared bankruptcy. Now , while she still has her job and her gym membership, she sleeps at night in her car, gets up goes to the gym in the morning and then to work. Her work mates are unaware of her situation. She is one of about 10others in a similar situation staying each night in the car park.
And then there are the 25,000 foreclosures in Chicago City alone and just in the last few months. And the worst thing is, that its affecting tennants, regular rent paying families, who are getting kicked out of their homes with one hours notice and left sitting with all their belongings on the sidewalk.
As someone in Sector One said, and they were in the real estate industry, ‘History isn’t going to be guide this time’.

All this contraction in the economy just makes the political situation more important.
People I talked to said ‘People are really frightened, what if McCain does get in. He’s not a well man. That could mean Palin becomes President. If Obama doesn’t get in we could be on the brink of civil war. The blacks will be upset, the educated liberals will be upset, those with any intelligence will be up in arms. This is an incredibly important election.'

Apparently Jefferson once said: “Every Election is a mini revolution.”

Thursday - Chicago Stock Exchange

hi y'all. well today was our second to last day in the great city of Chicago but for the most part we didn't think about it much. we were too busy straining our heads to see the top of buildings as we walked along - still very much looking like tourists wth our matching polos and backpacks on! Anyway, great weather, a sunny day and warm and we were driven into the city by our day hosts in order to see the Chicago STock Exchange. This was incredible, not only did we stand and view the trading and have it all explained to us by a wonderful rotarian, but then we were also taken onto the Trading Floor. This was amazing, 70,000 square feet of craziness,paper everyhwerere, people shouting and it takes 10 hours to clean each night. Apparently there are approx 150 trades every third of a second, thats 2 billion trades per year and involves approximately $1000 trillion US dollars!



As i write this one day later, the markets are in free fall across the globe and so who knows what the world will look like in the future. In the hour and a half of trading before we arrived at the Stock Exchange, General Motors stocks fell about 19% and now this mroning Ford shares are the same value as they were in the 1950's! There are stories all around us of college Funds that have disaperared, car loans refused and businesses and families under immense strain. Obama says that now is not the time to be democrat or republican but to be an american and band together.
well as a team we banded tog ether and after the stock exchange we headed to museum of science and industry and toured a german submarine and the biggest model train you've ever seen with a incredible model of the city of chicago. Then dinner as a team by ourselves (our last supper) before going to the comedy 'Second City'. THe political situation was a frequent topic for the evening's comedy. But right now its not a laughing matter.
I'm sitting here writing this wiht my bags all packed, we're going to head off to a shopping mall before heading to the aiport. This action packed wonderful warm and friendly american adventure is coming to a close.

Wednesday

Sorry this is really brief...
Up early for breakfast rotary meeting in another fabulous yacht club.
Then off to Rotary International Headquarters - great fun visiting and seeing the presidents office and taking photos.



then i separated and met wiht the former deputy director of development at Northwestern University. really interesting given northwestern is ranked 13th in the US by endowment.
Then lunch, a quick tour by car of northwestern and i popped into a sorority, then met up again iwht the team and we visited NEw Trier High School - very hgh socio economic school, 95% go to college (university) and many of those are to ivy league colleges.



Then a visit to the baha'i temple - which is the only one in the US and home for a sandwich before heading off to a jazz club in the city which was just fab!

Tuesday

Another slow start which was delicious and then we headed to the west side of the city to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity temple building. Wonderful church, very angular and in need of restoration but fabulous to see it and touch it.



Then past the Ernest Hemingway museum and into the Hispanic area of town for a cuban sandwich before visiting an incredibly interesting school. Its a charter school - state funded but now with its own independent charter etc. They ahve recived initital funding to restore buildings and now in thrid year of new school with uniform codes, responsiblity and behaviuoral codes and prime prupose to get students to u iversity. Incredbily well presented studnets and it was an impressive institution. Apparently tehre are 600 shcools in inner city Chicago, 162 High Schools and this charter shcool si ranked 10th in the city!
anyway it was tehn home to one of our host families who hosted a fabulous sit down three course meal around a huge dining table. it was a wonderful night.

Monday

Relaxed start... 9.00am pick up ...practically the afernoon!
And off we went into chicago city and we went first to the Field Museum. We saw Sue the Tyranasurs Rex (sorry about the spelling) this is all written in haste as always.
Two huge stuffed elephants (a little bit creepy) and wondeful egyptian and north american exhibits. Oh, and a couple of meteorites.



that took us till 2.00pm then lunch and the Shedd aquarium. Quite fun watching the fish =, sharks and anaconda!! Then t the World jazz music mart and a wee walk around the city before a pub meal and home. Big day, well walked but great to ahve a day in the city doing tourist things.

Friday and District Conference at the weekend

Up early with bags all packed including additional suitcases.
And off we went to the Naval Academy to watch the graduation ceremony. This was a real treat as this is the only academy in the whole of the US for the entry level training for naval recruits. 936 graduated with a heap of wonderful pomp and pageantry and we witnessed it all from the dias, and apparently graduation occurs every week! It was a neat experience.

Then off we went to Lincolnshire and the Rotary District Conference. Its all a bit of a blur but we joined the Paul Harris Luncheon and then presented in the afternoon and then had pre dinner drinks with the District Governor before sitting down to dinner with the Inbound GSE Team who arrive in NZ from Illinois in April 2009.
Friday evening the kiwis enjoyed wine tasting and swing dance in the Hospitatliy Rooms before finally getting to bed about 2.00am ish.
Saturday was bliss, we wore mufti, , I got my staples out, caught some ZZZZ's, went shopping (oh and how we shopped!) and then got our sparkly outfits on for the banquet dinner. Oh and by gosh there was dancing!! Some latin dancers taught us salsa and meringue and swept us off our feet and we finally got to bed about 2.00am ish!
Up early Sunday and Cheryl and I went to Willowcreek this mega church in the area. Its 33 years old, and it was a fantstic experience. Normally a congregation of 7000, the 9.00am service was only 4500 (!), and included a full rock band, 11 piece orchestra and afterwards you could get lunch in the food hall or return to your car (one of 1500 parked outside). Actually although it was a wonderful service and suprisingly personal for something so big.




This afternoon, Wayne, Brent and I got to meet Dan Seals, a Democrat Congressman trying for office and a close colleague of Barack Obama. There is a huge amount of support in this area for Obama and gosh its going to be interesting to see whats going to happen at the elections.



This evening, i met my host for the week, we've had a quick meal and i'm off to bed now before another busy week begins. This time though, it is our last week and all of a sudden we feel like we want everything to slow down as we don't want this great trip to end and we definitely won't want to say goodbye to the wonderful friends we've met.

Thursday - phew!

Up early for another breakfast Rotary meeting, but in fab venue. the most superb yacht club you can imagine, and the biggest on the lake i think i was told. Also, a native american indian had been invited to speak with us, he is from the Potowotamie Nation whihc is local to this area. Then back into the bus and we were off to a brand new specialist high school whihc has been open 5 weeks. Specialised in project based learning and it was quite interesting and made the other educationalists amongst us reflect quite positively on what we are already doing in that area in the NZ curriculum. Then back onto the bus and off to another ratary lunch meeting but this time wiht full presenation and thge club of our own host families etc. We had thansgiving meal - turrkey follwed by pumpkin pie and we were presented wiht a huge goodie bag and a beautiful book of Chicago. The generosity is overwhleming.
Then not time to dilly dally, we were off for a golf lesson wiht a pro. Sad to say, theat folloiwng the lesson my golf took a sharp decline and i had a rather sad and dismal success rate in our game, but it was fun nonetheless and great to be in the fresh air, and the head was fine too which was great.
Then.... finally home to our host families and this time by about 6.00pm. I have had a beautiful meal, and we curled up and watched the vice presidential debates on tv (along wiht 69.9 million other americans)and ahd a Black Cow each (thats root beer with icecream!). A lovely wee respite before repacking the suitcase for tomoorrows 7.00am start!!!

Wednesday

Well there is no time to sleep in this sector of the journey. It was up at five am to be ready to leave the hosue at six for another breakfast Rotary meeting, i think we're all doing quite well to sing the national anthem that early in the morning!
Then off to a local accounting firm after which, i separated from the group and was taken to the train station by one of our hosts. i caught the train back into chicago city and then a cab to Roosevelt university where i met with their development director. it was a great meeting, and afterwards i took myself on a self guided tour of the uni - well that building anyway. Great views of the lake and a wonderful victorian staircase and stained glass windows. Then , becuase I could, i took a cab to the Oprah Winfrey STudios and shop.




The shop was nothing much, but I was just in time to see everyone come out of the show and i stood talking to alady as i waited for a taxi. We eneded up sharing the cab into the city and heard all about the show. A wee stroll up Michigan AVe while i waited for the others who were at athe Botanic Gardens, then a taxi to the Mexican Restaurant where we met up.
Then...... we headed to the Goodman Theatre and saw a wonderful wee musical aobut ELvis, jerry Lee Louis and some other 1950's rock and rollers. Great music!
Home by 10.30 ish and starght to bed in readiness for another 5.00am start.

Tuesday ?? Was it?

This week has been just a blur but it is coming to an end and it will be sad to say goodby once again to our host families and our hosts for each day.
Tuesday:
We visited a high school technology campus - interesting, all the high schools in the area send their students to the tech campus for the vocational subjects like chef training, automotive etc.
Then Rotary lunch
Then we visited an elementary school and each went to a separate classroom and read a kiwi book to the kids. It was heaps of fun, most of the children are hispanic in this area and they loved that the Maori vowels are the same as spanish. they sang me the vowel song so i had to sing a waiata in return - solo! Very cool kids!





Then a tour of the local theatre that has been restored
Then we all headed off to the Methodist Church to feed the hungry. The team cooked rice and measured out drinks and served the crowd. They all loved the funny way we talked.
Then after changing in the loos and the van we headed off to the Yacht club to have dinner with the mayor, and finally home to bed