Sunday, May 30, 2010

Hey, Chicago, what do you say...

...The Cubs are gonna win today!

My busy summer has started. The first 3 days after graduation, Tashi and all her friends were still in school. So I stayed home helping my parents with house and yard work all day while they worked. Grandma and Grandpa S. were here too, so we helped them load up a moving truck full of stuff. They were working hard! I got a letter from my cousin Stephen too! He's on a mission in Japan. I can't wait for him to come home in September!

Anyways, I was feeling a little trapped at home. I wanted to get out. Our senior trip was on the 27th, but I felt like I wasn't going to have very much fun because Amber and Amanda decided not to go. But I ended up having a great time! I had never been to Chicago before.

(^ right out side Union Station ^)
Only about half of our class went. We met at the school at 5:30, rode the school bus 45 minutes to the Am track station, rode the Am track for 4 hours, walked 6 blocks down the grimy part of Chicago past Sears Tower, and rode the subway to Wrigley Field. I got to talk to Kerr Daddy on the Am track, which was a good start to my trip.

(^ walking down the 6 blocks to the Redline ^)
One kid had to wear a Cardinals jersey just to be a rebel. We told him he was going to get beat up in Chicago, but he actually got a lot of compliments on the street, and a school bus full of kids driving by booed our cubs jerseys. You never know.

Tokyo still beats Chicago, though. By a long shot. Still, I missed the big city. I felt like I was in my element. Our teachers told us not to make eye contact with anyone because the crime rate had gone up recently. Haha. People were freaking out about the sewage smells, people being mean, all the stop lights, the crowds of people, the stale air and all the people touching them on the subway...I was enjoying it! I'm not saying I want to live in Chicago, but you know. Everyone wanted germ ex the whole time. I told one teacher that it wasn't bothering me, because I grew up in a big city, and she said "well, if you don't know any better..." Any better? Hey now. I guess you guys don't know any better than the manure smell and racism from your little town. Wow people need to get out more.

(^ at the subway station ^)
Because travel time took so long, we only had time for the Cubs game. I had never seen a professional sport live before. And I'm not really in baseball, but I actually had a lot of fun. It was against the Dodgers, and the Cubs won 1-0. Sounds like a hockey game, right? Haha It was still 0-0 at the end of the 7th inning. So it was really boring up until that point. Nothing was going anywhere. Then all of the sudden, Mike Fontenot made it to third base, and Tyler Colvin drove him in. The Dodgers just kept striking out after that. So the Cubs won! Go, Cubs, Go played, and we all wanted to sing along, but our teachers rushed us to the subway again. Two boys got conned into giving $3 each to a man they thought was homeless. The teachers told us not to make eye contact. But they had to be nice because everyone in the country is nice, right? Hee hee

( ^ sitting by Kerr Daddy at Wrigley Field ^)
It was beautiful weather, but we were sitting in the shade and it is called the Windy City, so we were a bit cold while we were watching. Everything was so overpriced in Wrigley Field, it was insane! I did buy a really cute vintage looking Cubs v-neck. It was the cheapest thing (and the cutest) so I lucked out. And I promise I wasn't wearing my sunglasses the whole time. Just every time they snapped a picture haha. So now I admit I am a Cubs fan. And I'm really glad I went. Next time I want to walk Lake Shore Drive and go to the shopping area though. And definitely see a musical or some other show.

( ^ ♪Go, Cubs, Go! Go, Cubs, Go! ♪ ^)
We almost missed our Am track train home. It was really scary. This lady working at the station gave us the wrong directions. So we ended up in a really crowded place that was really crazy. They wouldn't let us through because we didn't have tickets. We tried to explain that our teachers were already on the train with our tickets...but you know airport and train station workers. They treat you like crap. We were calling our teachers and they weren't doing anything either. You could hear all the panic in our voices. I almost started crying. Because a new train probably wouldn't come til the next morning and we would have to buy our own tickets, find a place to stay for the night...it was horrible. But finally we found out we had the wrong directions and started running for the train. The same lady who gave us wrong directions stopped us and asked us where we were going because we were running. We told her, and she said we were late and holding up the rest of the train. Ya, no thanks to you, lady. But we were fine and I got to sit next to and talk to Brooke the ride home.

Listen to Go, Cubs, Go! It's catchy!

1 comment:

Mary said...

I'm glad you had fun at the game but You need to go to Chicago with me. I look everyone in the eyes. People watching is a blast. And besides you haven't been to Chicago until you had the pizza and gone shopping.