Hello Chicago

It is still Tuesday.

It’s still Tuesday, the same day I woke up tired and groggy after sleeping for two hours, the same day we all met at El Cerrito High School in the dark and said goodbye to our families, the same day we left for SFO at 4 in the morning, the same day we ate lightly salted peanuts while staring out at the feathery clouds, the same day we got off the plane in Minneapolis in cloudy weather and got back on the plane to go to Chicago.

These moments are peculiarly distant now. In less than 24 hours, we have been in three different states. We have experienced fresh cool air and humid raindrops. We have experienced both thunder and lightning, glaring light and dull overhead clouds.

So much has happened, and it is still Tuesday.

Today we met two of Ms. Neal’s friends who were both WCCUSD graduates and who live in the Chicago area. They showed us around the city, brought us to eat Giordano’s pizza and Garrett popcorn, and danced with me in Forever 21. They also suggested we walk to Millennium Park to see Buckingham Fountain lit up at night, but since it was raining pretty hard and because the wind was getting cold, we ended up walking back to our hotel, The Drake, and had a blogging party instead.

We are all tired now, but we plan on visiting the beautiful beach across the street from our hotel still. We also plan on visiting Millennium Park and getting Kevin to teach us how to ballroom dance in the ballroom. It won’t be today, but we plan on doing these things before leaving for Ithaca.

Terilyn’s (Personal) Random Observations for 6/21:

· Many girls in Chicago wear pretty long skirts that are kind of hippie

· The humid weather in Chicago feels like weather in Taiwan

· Minneapolis has a lot more trees than SF does