Bad Luck Begins

Today started it out slightly less nice than yesterday, and sure enough, it started raining as soon as we got off our train into the city. We dropped Kizzy off with Becky again, this time for the night, as we planned to go to a play later in the

evening. When we go into Chicago we had to stop at a Starbucks so Dad could get his caffeine fix and so we could figure out our plan for the day. We decided to take the Big Bus tours again, down to Millennium Park, and later to the Navy Pier to ride the original Ferris wheel. On our way over to the bus stop, we stopped at the Willis Tower, née Sears Tower, so we could use our passes to go up to the SkyDeck for an above view of Chicago from the highest point in the city. It was a beautiful view, but the entire deck was ridiculously crowded and one family decided they would hog the glass floor for about eight years. I still managed to get my handstand picture though. When we descended once more and headed over to the bus stop, we came upon a group of striking United Airlines workers protesting on the street. Second protest I’ve seen this year, throwback to Besançon. Our stop was across the street from the park I previously mentioned, right beside the beginning of historical Route 66. Once we’d gotten a picture with the sign, we walked across the road and sat down at a picnic table next to th

e Cloud Gate, which looks like a giant, reflective kidney bean. We ate our lunch, explored the powers of the enormous bean and got back on the bus so we could get down to the Pier. Now folks, this is where my bad luck begins. I always secure my iPad underneath my leg when I’m sitting down, but this time it was too far under and I was putting too much pressure on it, especially since the seat wasn’t a flat surface. I shifted a little bit and pop went the screen. Sure enough, when I lifted it up it had spiderweb cracks all the way across. So much for that. I was in a bit of a bad mood, but the ride on the Ferris wheel helped, especially since it’s in such an iconic scene in Divergent (the book, not the movie, the movie sucked). My brother and my mother didn’t want to come with Dad and I, so while we were enjoying pretty views and such, they went to purchase us some Chicago style popped corn. It’s a blend of cheese and caramel, you may have seen it before. It was all right, but the cheese was the better of the two flavours, and it wasn’t my favourite. I don’t really like tastes mixed together in odd combinations. We basically scarfed the whole bag down, thanks to the help of Isaac’s elegant face-shoving and then exited the premises so we could

get back on the bus and find an Apple store, to see if they could potentially fix my broken mess of an electronic device. They said they would have to replace the entire iPad, they couldn’t just fix the screen and made us an appointment. Dad and I decided not to attend after all, because the Big Bus finally showed and we wanted to get dinner anyways. The place we ended up choosing was a tiny little restaurant called the Italian Village that is over a century old, recommended by the bus tour guide. The food was really good, and the service was incredible. I’ve never had that many waiters ever. They brought us water before we were even sitting down properly. I ordered a white wine risotto, but there was so much food I ended up having to pack it in a box and bring it home. Of course, the time we left the restaurant happened to be right when the sky opened up for real, so it just dumped on us during our walk/run to the theatre, and by the time we all got into the doors, we were soaked through. It was totally worth it though. The play was amazingly hilarious and it also portrayed a good message. Isaac was quite shocked and awed when he learned the pretty girls dancing were actually dudes in drag. It was really funny. The characters were so good, and obviously they all sounded amazing. Definitely a play to go see. I am now off to buy the soundtrack. By the time the play was over, it was quite late and we needed to head back. I almost fell asleep on the train and again in the truck, a rare occurrence for le moi. We got back to the trailer and headed off to bed immediately. It had been a long day. But Chicago is awesome. Peace out m8s.

#chicago #camping #illinois