Thrift Store Cray.

We had arranged to meet Lauren at her new adopted bachelor pad at 12 to go for some kind of brunch in the Wicker Park area, so we had a nice leisurely wake up. The house was really easy to find and in a very nice neighbourhood. The apartment itself was very obviously lived in by boys, who had half moved out, leaving behind lots of stuff in cupboards, the sofa and tv, and a pet snake in one of the bedrooms. The revelation that there was a pet snake prompted Clare into telling us about a pet snake she once had and doing an impression of the snake when it went to eat a frozen mouse. There are no words for how genius this impression was, we were literally crying with laughter, and it caused this same reaction whenever it was repeated over the next couple of days.

So, we were meant to be going for breakfast/lunch, but we ended up waltzing around Wicker Park and the surrounding area for ages and went to get a coffee at a place recommended which did an amazing latte made with both coconut milk and cayenne pepper in. Sounds bizarre but it was really good!!

En route back towards either Lauren's or finding food (whichever came first), we stumbled across something which would significantly change our lives for the better. As we stood waiting to cross a road, Lauren pointed out a sign for a thrift store and we all agreed we wanted to check it out since we were all into second hand/vintage clothes and had heard wonderful tales of American thrift stores. We were in for the best treat of our lives...

First of all, it was huuuuuge. Clothes literally everywhere. Lauren suggested we got a trolley as we went in, which we all thought was a slightly OTT move at the time. How wrong we were. Each aisle was clearly labelled, and each item of clothing had a small label on it with a price we couldn't work out. When we asked someone they confirmed it said $1.90 or whatever and from this point was when we went crazy. Starting off in the denim section we were trying on shorts over our clothes, I even managed to paper cut my thumb with one of the labels on some shorts I tried on. All very exciting. We all kept running off to different sections and using the trolley as base camp. Clare came back with some excellent blazer finds, Lauren was picking up all sorts of things wild and wonderful, including two amazing 90s jackets with excellent patterns on. Kitty and I started by focusing on the denim shorts section, but soon moved on to other items including silk scarves, belts and blouses. Clare found an amazing small red leather suitcase for carting all her excess purchases home. This is also mine and Kitty's plan for New York; buy a cheap bag and full it with all the purchases!!

After a while realised it was nearly 4 o clock and we had been running excitedly around the thrift store for over 3 hours (!!!!) with all thoughts of hunger or needing a wee, which were present when we first entered, forgotten. After helping Lauren decide which items weren't 100% necessary to buy, we headed out with our overflowing trolley of goods. For $14 Kitty got some denim shorts, two beaut scarves, a real leather belt and an amazing denim shirt. For $15, I got two pairs of Wrangler denim shorts, two patterned blouses, and a floral shirty thing which looks better as a blazer. Incredible!!

After the purchase of basically entire new wardrobes, we finally remembered we were hungry and went in search of food. The guy who was letting Lauren crash in his flat had recommended a Costa Rican restaurant on the corner near his house so we rocked up there. Our waiter was called Omar and was super friendly, giving us a list of places to go that we would never have thought of. The food was epic; Clare and I had burritos, Lauren had fish and Kitty had steak with onions, egg, rice and beans with a taco on the side. Safe to say she didn't eat it all! Omar came and sat with us after our meal, bringing us all a free milkshake, made with oats in and sprinkled with cinnamon, as he chatted to us and wrote us our list of where to go.

After this magnificent day of excitement of joy, our mood was lessened when we arrived back at Lauren's and couldn't open the door. All four of us tried in various ways, to no avail. After sitting on the steps of the house in silence for a while, we decided to head back to the hostel.

Clare had actually already checked out of our hostel as she was meant to be checking in to another hostel in downtown Chicago. Lauren decided she would go back to the flat and try and get in again/hope one of the guys would show up, then we would join her once she was in. Luckily, as she got back, one of the guys arrived to pick up his snake and showed her the trick to opening the door.

Clare left the hostel with us but headed to her new hostel downtown instead of coming to back to Lauren's. We were heading there to have a short cutting and fraying session. This turned into an epicly deep life chat whilst slowly cutting the shorts. It suddenly started torrentially raining, and there was a dramatic thunderstorm which was exciting except we had to walk back to the hostel at some point, so we waited for it to cool off before heading back, failing to avoid the huge puddles!

Kray update of the day: when we got up, she was sat on her bed pretending to read some innocent young girls palms. Kitty, who was nearest this, enjoyed the soothing talk but was afraid Kray would try and read hers! She was making abstract guesses about this girl in the way of boyfriends and relatives dying of cancer which were all wrong. Worst palm reading ever. Also, she really creepily watched me moving around the room whilst I was getting things from my bag so we made sure everything was always locked away; after the yoghurt incident, who knows what else she might be inclined to casually steal!