The train south from Chicago was the first taste of how I imagined this trip to go and the first feel of the real America.
No, there is nothing unreal about New York, but it is very much its own thing. Self-sufficient, a country unto its own rather than a city belonging to anywhere in particular.
If hustle is the first word that NY brings to my mind, the adjective for Chicago is genteel. Wide, clean streets, bunches of university students, well kept parks. The occasional rough corner where drugs are being traded openly is self-contained and doesn’t spill out into the neighbourhood, and old tourists like myself aren’t accosted as they amble through.