Day 13: Chicago

For a Saturday, we woke up bright and early for a two hour drive to Chicago. We got there pretty early and it was the first time in two weeks that we saw pigeons and subways. Today was our UChicago college tour. We walked around looking for the admissions office, but we couldn't find it. Instead, we found groups of tours so we joined them. Our tour guide was Olivia and we got to see some dorms, libraries, and learning centers. The campus was amazing because it has all sorts of cool buildings and it's integrated into the city. After the tour, we went to the office to pick up some information and signed up for the contact list. The lady at the desk even gave us a pair of sunglasses!

We then went to an information session which usually come before tours, but we missed ours. After a good forty minutes, we went to have lunch at the park. We laid down some blankets on the grass and had sandwiches and lots of fruits.

After lunch, we drove to downtown Chicago, found a parking lot and went on a journey to explore Chicago. Our first destination was Grant Park alone lake Michigan. There was a giant fountain that shot water 50 feet high! It was beautiful. We felt mist from the fountain even standing five feet from it.

As we continued to walk in Grant Park, we saw many statues including the walking statues. They're weird because there were only legs without a body.

We continued to walk until we hit the city. The buildings in Chicago are pretty and reminded us of New York. They even had a copper bull which we all attempted to hop on. We succeeded...well for the most part. Lucinda couldn't get on despite a few tries so she stood next to it.

After the bull, our next destination was the Willis Tower. As we were walking, we realized that many shops were closed, so Marissa randomly asked a few people on the street. We never did find out why most of downtown was closed on a Saturday Afternoon. When we finally got to the Willis (formerly Sears) tower, there were so many people. It was a two hour wait to get upstairs, so even though we really wanted to sit in the glass box and look down on the city we decided to take picture outside instead of waiting to go up. We then headed to Navy Pier. On our way, we got sidetracked for a while to get some Chicago mix popcorn from Garrett's. It was really yummy and we couldn't stop eating it.

At Navy Pier, we had thirty minutes to walk around and we must say, we made a great use of our time. We went to Build-A-Bear. Emily had never built a bear, so we decided she must do it today. She picked a white teddy bear and went through the whole process, even cleaning it. We looked through some outfits and Emily chose a green cheerleaders outfit with a tiara. We even created a birth certificate for her. Marissa had a great time dressing the bear on the bus.  So we would like to introduce you to our new mascot - Sassy the cheerleading princess.

Marissa got some interesting looks from customers on the train as she dressed Sassy/

Everyone say hi to Sassy Jr. - our Leaf mascot.

By the time we decided to head for Lou Malnati's for pizza, it was too late for our plans to go swing dancing at Grant Park and a movie. At Lou Malnati's, we waited on line for about an hour during which we played Mao. We also preordered a large sausage deep dish pizza, a medium pepperoni deep dish pizza, and a house salad. When we went in, the food come pretty quickly and we dug in. We each ate a slice of each pie and we were stuffed. We all agreed that New York pizza is better, but never got full eating only two slices of pizza.

After dinner, we drove to Hampton Inn and Suites. The hotel was really pretty and the beds were so comfortable. When we first stepped into the room, we were all excited to see a TV set. Soon enough, we all fell asleep. It was a great night.