December 20

Wednesday - Today marked the first day in me and Clayton's trip up to Chicago. I figured it was time to get up to the city and spend some time there. Hang with some kids that grew up there and experience the chi town. Just because I had never really before. I know right?! It's so close.

I packed everything up in the morning, then drove and picked up clayton. We loaded up the Jeep and headed out. Got some gas, took the ramp onto I55 and headed North. The drive didn't take too long - before we knew it we were navigating our way with the aid of some GoogleMaps print-outs. Traffic wasn't bad and Oak Park was coming up pretty fast. We located Katherine's house after getting of the highway a little earlier than we probably should have - rough neighborhoods can be a bit scary.

We found her just as we pulled up to her house. She had just gotten back. We said the hellos and jumped into her car. And from this point on it was nonstop adventures and fun. Katherine gave us a tour of Oak Park. It sort of resembles Springfield's North side. Big old homes - but it's all good neighborhoods. The downtown is quaint but nicely put together and clean. Christmas lights covered all the buildings and trees that lined the road - It was a pretty sight. We stopped at her friend's house to say hello, got a few things from my car back at her house, then headed toward the city and Wicker Park.

Wicker Park is probably where we spent most of our time. Lots of artsy shops and restaurants. Urban Outfitters/American Apparel has some outlets there WOOO! Haha. We had dinner at the EarWax Cafe. Small little lunch/dinner place. The food was good. The walls were covered with posters and art. I had a cheeseburger which was pretty yummy.

Hit up some shops on the street. Lots of thrift stores and old record shops. Picked up this old velvet blazer - only 10 bucks. After we roamed the streets for a bit, we got back in the car and headed back to Oak Park. We stopped at this Jazz place called Fitzgerald's. Katherine knew some guys in the jazz band that were playing, but we were late and the cover was $4. It was definitely a really cool place though. Headed back to Katherine's house and got in my car and drove over to Lana's house. She had just gotten back from a ski trip with her friends and needed some time to shower. We arrived at her house and moved a bunch of stuff into the side room where the couch was.

Earlier that day we made some plans to meet up with Caitlin and Karen in the city around 9.30ish. So were decided against driving and took a ride into downtown on the train. Haha that was an experience. $2 ride into the city on the...green line? I dunno for sure. But we arrived right downtown and next to the Macy's windows. It was really dreary downtown and raining, but the atmosphere was really cool. A bit chilly but not too bad. We wondered - waiting for a call from Caitlin that they had arrived in the city.

We waited inside a Dunkin' Donuts by Millennium Park. We finally got a call from them around 10 and told them were we were hanging. They met up with us and we headed into the Park. The bean is totally cool! And it was at night and no one else was there except us. Pretty awesome. The faces were also way cool. We were the only ones standing in front of these massive walls of faces. I loved it.

By now it was really raining and we were getting pretty soaked. It was 11pm and everything was closed, we didn't know what to do. Apparently Issac Bloom was going to meet us downtown so we went over to the train stop to greet him. Caitlin and Karen couldn't drive us back to Oak Park and there was nothing else to do downtown except hang in Dunkin' Donuts, so we said our goodbye's and took the train home. We actually got a return on our train ticket, so we only had to add 25 cents to the card. We had to wait up on the track, but we could stand under the little heat lamps. haha.

Back in Oak Park we all cuddled in the side room and watched a movie. "Happiness" I think. It was sort of strange, but I liked it. I never got to see the whole thing because I fell asleep. I was crazy tired. Issac ended up staying too. He and Lana slept on the floor. Katherine walked back home after the movie, her house was only a couple blocks to the east.