Chicago - Part 3

At 3:00 we left the Art Institute to meet the rest of the group before they all went over to the train station for the ride back down to Champaign. Here I said goodbye to the group, as I was staying another 24 hours.

I then called up my friend Lauren to come meet me. After about 15 minutes of waiting in front of the Art Institute I was abducted by two men in spectacles with large noses and funny mustaches. They took me back to Lauren's apartment where I changed into normal clothes, met her roommates and neighbor, we ate pretzels and watched half of Cool Runnings on a VHS intended only for advertisement to retailers.

Around five my two other friends, Rachel and Andrew showed up, and Lauren and I went with them to get dinner. At dinner I finally learned what this famous "Chicago Deep Dish Pizza" is, and I admit that it was very good, but far too much for me to eat.

We discussed the obscene number of Walgreens and Starbucks in Chicago and came across "gang signs" before heading back to Lauren's apartment. There we were given healthy doses of Aaron Eckhart and Taylor Swift, BS was called, doors were named Dumble, hair was braided and we briefly Skyped with Jeremy. The internet was out at the apartment and Lauren had to sit against a wall to steal wireless from across the street. It was kind of strange being in such a big city, with so many people around, and in a sense being cut off from so much.

At a certain point we said goodbye to Lauren and headed over to UChicago where I was given the grand tour. I must say it all gave me a very Hogwarts vibe. Both in size and architecture. Very different from the U of I. Completely randomly during the grad tour we ran into two more people we know from high school, Hannah and Elaine. It was rather strange actually, especially given that Andrew said he hadn't seen them in months. In fact, it reminded me of Hannah's graduation speech, in which she compared high school to a TV show, and said that all the people from our school going off to UChicago is a lot like a spinoff show. I was totally feeling that, and feeling like a guest star from the old show. Weird. Later Rachel got a text from Elaine of another one of our classmates at a party, meaning that I saw all but one of the people from my class that went to UChicago. We hung out for a little longer and discovered that one of our classmates had apparently been written out of the U of I spinoff without our knowledge. Eventually Rachel and Andrew took me over to my friend Jono's apartment, where I was staying the night, and we said goodbye.

There is a hidden iFoundry connection in this post. If you know what it is, you win!