Chicago

If you have ever been to Chicago, then you know how beautiful it is. With the tall buildings and Chicago River running straight through the middle. The architecture is unique and carefully crafted oh so many years ago. I could stand and stare at the buildings alone for hours. But that is not the reason I traveled to Chicago in July of 2022. While seeing The Bean and shopping on Michigan Ave were perks of my trip, these were not the main pulls for the reason why 3 of my closest friends and I piled into a car for 6 hours and 14 minutes (if you don’t make any stop).

July 22, 2022 10:00am

I arrived at my good friend Greta’s house. My mom dropped me off. With me I had a suitcase, a backpack, and my pillow. As my mom helped me get all of my baggage out of the car, Greta and her mom emerged from their front door with wide grins across their faces. “Today is finally the day!” says Greta’s mom. Her name is Sara and I have known her since Greta and I became best friends in kindergarten. My mom lets out an excited “Woop Woop!” and Greta and I just laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Greta and I loaded my bags into the trunk and backseat of the car, while behind us our friends Natalie (who Greta and I met in 8th grade) and Olivia (who Greta and I met in 5th grade) arrived. That’s 12, 4, and 7 years of friendship, as we are all 17 years old. Their moms also drove them over. We have a very similar interaction of greetings and the girls all chat about how excited we are for the next 4 days together. Greta then helps Natalie and Olivia load their bags into the car as well. We all say a farewell to our moms with big hugs and promise to be well behaved. Then Greta, Natalie, Olivia, Sara and I all load into the car and back out of the driveway. Chicago awaits!

July 22, 2022 5:00pm

The car ride felt long and we sang along to our favorite songs for a majority of it. After driving for so many hours that my legs went numb and making only one stop for a lunch of Jimmy John’s subs, we arrived at our hotel in Hinsdale, Illinois. This is where Greta’s mom, Sara, was born and grew up, so she knows the area quite well and gave us a quick tour around the main town before arriving at the hotel (since she was the one driving). Hinsdale is about 30 minutes from the city of Chicago. We mustered up our last bit of energy and used it to unload the car and bring our bags to our room. All of the girls shared a room, and Sara had her own room across the hall. As we unpacked a little bit and settled in, Natalie began scouting Google for fun dinner restaurants we could try. We debated between 2 different options before deciding on one that was in downtown Hinsdale. Next was the fun part, getting ready! Even though it was nearing 6:00pm and it would be chilly soon, it was still warm enough for shorts and short-sleeves. I remember how much fun it was to pick out an outfit and do my makeup and hair with my best friends, while we listened to our shared playlist of course. We all still had the feeling of fresh excitement about where our Chicago weekend was going to take us.

July 22, 2022 10:00pm

After a fabulous dinner of pizza and salad, and loads of pictures during the sunset, we all headed back to the hotel we would call home until Sunday. Since we had experienced a busy travel and settling-in day, we were all exhausted. It was an early night for us. Our big plans for the next day awaited us.

July 23, 2022 7:00am

We woke up to the sound of our alarms blaring, and even though it was early we didn’t care. We knew that we had a super fun day ahead of us. After getting ready for the day and eating a quick breakfast in the hotel lobby, we were ready to go into the city. At breakfast we had planned our itinerary for the day. It included driving into the city, visiting The Bean, stopping for a coffee, walking around, lunch by the river, a boat tour of all of the important buildings surrounding the Chicago River, more shopping, dinner, and then whatever else we had time for. Sara would be with us for the meals and the boat tour, but other than that she would be doing her own exploring and sightseeing in a city she once lived so close to. Knowing we had all of these activities to get through we set off around 9:00 am. All of these things went exactly as planned and it was an awesome day.

July 23, 2022 3:00pm

I would say that my favorite part was during the shopping portion of the day. A fun fact about me is that I love to wear rings. During this time in my life, I was still building my ring collection that I would wear every day. Luckily for me, my friends also love rings. While shopping we decided to go into Pandora to just look around. While looking at rings in a glass case, Olivia pointed out a cute one with a slight v shape. Natalie, Greta, and I all crowded around to admire the ring for ourselves. It was at this moment that we all knew we would be leaving with matching rings. After about 30 minutes of looking over our options, deciding to get a second ring with a vine pattern wrapping around it that Natalie found, and then trying on lots of different sizes of both rings, we checked out and skipped out of the store with the widest smiles I’ve ever seen. Even though I’m not really friends with Olivia and Greta anymore, I wear my rings everyday as a reminder of how much fun I once had with them and how much love I have for them.

July 24, 2022 9:00am

By the time 9:00am rolled around Natalie, Greta, Olivia, and I were awake, ready for the day, and had a change of clothes packed for the event that was happening that evening. This event was the whole reason we traveled to Chicago in the first place. We could not wait. But before this event, we had a busy day. For our second day in Chicago we had an itinerary that consisted of breakfast in Hinsdale, a trip to the Lincoln Park Conservatory and the Chicago Zoo, then to The Art Institute of Chicago, then coffee of course, followed by some wandering, dinner, then the main spectacle of the trip. What a busy day!

July 24, 2022 10:00am

We had breakfast at the Egg Harbor Cafe, and I cannot recommend it enough. I kid you not, I still dream about the breakfast that I had here. It consisted of hash browns topped with green onions, a plain bagel with plain cream cheese, and an iced vanilla latte. The Egg Harbor Cafe is also where my best friend Natalie and I took our very favorite photo together. This photo has resurfaced as phone and computer backgrounds, appeared in social media posts, and also been the cover of the yearly calendar we make. Overall an 11/10 experience and a great start to the day!

July 24, 2022 11:00am

After parking the car and doing some walking, Natalie, Greta, Olivia, Sara, and I entered the Lincoln Park Conservatory. This was a super fun stop because there were all kinds of different plants and even palm trees! We enjoyed having Sara take pictures of us in front of every fascinating thing we saw. Once we had seen every plant and walked every trail, we left the conservatory and started to walk across a grassy field to the Chicago Zoo. One thing about my friends and I, we LOVE to go to the zoo. Now don’t get me wrong it does make me super sad to see all of the animals encaged. But for some odd reason we have always loved trips to the zoo. We walked around for a while and spent the most time looking at the aquatic animals. There were huge tanks with fish of all colors, sharks, stingrays, otters, seals, and many more. This was unanimously our favorite area to explore.

July 24, 2022 1:30pm

After a stop for lunch, the group was ready to tackle The Art Institute of Chicago. I remember the building itself was so beautiful with large stained glass windows and elegant staircases. The building was also massive and it seemed that we walked around for hours and still didn’t see every piece of art. What stood out to me the most were the Monet paintings. I could stare at the waterlily painting forever and notice new things and brush strokes after every blink. It was so surreal to be that close to such famous and world-known works. After we finished walking around the museum. We headed down the road to a cute coffee shop and all ordered the classic “iced vanilla latte please!” When we were refreshed and recharged, we did more typical tourist wandering around. Then we were hungry again and it was time for dinner.

July 24, 2022 4:00pm

We arrived at a rooftop restaurant at around 4:00pm. Once we had an appetizer and an icy water, Natalie and I set out to find the bathroom for our outfit change. After walking down some rickety stairs and through a couple narrow hallways, we finally found it. After about 10 minutes, lots of chatting, laughing at the crazy setting around us, and debriefing pretty much our whole lives up until that moment, we were changed and event ready. We trekked back up to the table and were pleased to find that our food had arrived. Once clear plates covered the table, Greta and Olivia set out on the same outfit change adventure. All changed and ready, we all piled back into Sara’s car and set off in the direction of Soldier Field. It was time for the big event.

July 24, 2022 6:30pm

By this time we had parked the car, taken a million pictures, ventured to the bathroom, walked around, and browsed social media from our seats for a while. Natalie, Greta, Olivia, and I all sat in a row. Four peas in a pod. While Sara sat a couple rows upwards from us, she had a priority of letting us have a feeling of freedom but still keeping a watchful eye as we were still young girls. The first opener started to perform and honestly I don’t remember too much of it. What I do remember was watching the crew work together to set up the stage, how blue and clear the sky was, thinking how small the people on the floor looked and wondering when the concert was going to start. The second opener started and it was actually Mike Dean. For those of you who may not know, Mike Dean is a famous producer and audio mixer who works with my all time favorite artist, Travis Scott. Mike Dean is extremely talented, but you would never be able to tell that from his opening act. It was horrendous. I remember it being so loud and just sounding like a bunch of random off-key noises. Greta and I talked about how this guy could have made Astroworld (a Grammy nominated album by Travis Scott), and somehow was also the cause of these horrid sounds. Nonetheless we sat through it all because at least it’s a funny story now.

July 24, 2022 9:00pm

Natalie, Greta, Olivia, I assume Sara, and I were getting restless as it became dark over Soldier Field. The sun was setting and the busy day was starting to catch up to us. Suddenly we heard the Dawn FM intro start to play over the loudspeakers. That’s right! We had come to Chicago for The Weeknd concert. This was the US leg of his Dawn FM tour. As the backdrop miniature city lit up and background dancers filled the stage, we waited for the moment we would see Abel (aka The Weeknd). Natalie, Greta, Olivia, Sara, and I were all huge fans of The Weeknd and listened to his music on a regular basis. This included almost the whole drive to Chicago, in concert preparation of course. As the anticipation grew, we jumped out of our seats. The concert consisted of strobe lights, crazy dance moves, and all of our favorite songs. The setlist contained lots of his Dawn FM album, but also a lot of his top hits from his previous albums. We laughed, sang, danced, and cried with no worries. This is what I believe true happiness feels like. I have few pictures and videos from the actual concert because I didn’t want to miss a second, and also my phone was at about 20% battery after our crazy sightseeing day. What a blessing in disguise. This was a moment that I never ever wanted to leave.

July 24, 2022 10:44pm

This was the best 3 minutes and 32 seconds of the whole Chicago weekend. If you’ve never listened to any song by The Weeknd, I suggest you listen to this one. “Less Than Zero” from the Dawn FM album. Truly I don’t think I’ve ever felt more bliss and peace than I did when this song began to play throughout Soldier Field. The strobe lights on and around the stage turned a beautiful light blue color that seemed to radiate throughout the whole stadium. Abel told everyone to turn their phone flashlights on, and of course we all listened. It was so crazy to see the wave of flashlights appearing from the crowd across the stadium from us. To see just how many people were packed into Soldier Field because of their love for The Weeknd was breathtaking and unifying. The sight is ingrained into my brain, and I pray that I never forget this moment. It is so absolutely bizarre to see how much this one song was bonding complete strangers. To look around the enormous stadium and see everyone singing, dancing, and being truly present in the moment gave me such a feeling of community with people I didn’t even know. I couldn’t do anything but try to remember everything about the environment around me. I think I somewhat successfully did that. We sang and danced our hearts out and Natalie, Greta, Olivia, and I were all in tears by the end of the song. With tear streaked faces and raspy voices, we group hugged and I made an internal promise to look out for these girls no matter where life took us. I don’t think I had ever experienced such a gratitude for anyone before in my life. I’ll be forever thankful that I was given the opportunity to experience this within my lifetime and I will cherish these memories forever.

July 25, 2022 1:00am

By 1:00am we were safe in our room debriefing the events of the evening and watching the few videos we had. We were exhausted after our long day and then fighting our way through the crowds of people to get back to the car. Then we sat in traffic for a while before finally making it back to Hinsdale. We all fell asleep with big smiles and ringing ears. I know that I dreamt of the concert and I bet my friends did too.

July 26, 2022 9:00am

By 9:00am we had already gotten ready for the day, packed our bags up, loaded the car, and went 94 floors into the air. One last tourist stop before we left, 360 Chicago. Sara stayed in the car due to her fear of heights, but Natalie, Greta, Olivia, and I were up to the adventure. We traveled at what seemed like almost the speed of light in an elevator and arrived at the 94th floor before we knew it. After stopping to admire the views from all windows and directions and take lots of pictures, we looked at the souvenirs and then headed back down to ground level. Around 10am we were departing from the great city of Chicago. It was a pretty calm ride home filled with music, snacks, and of course naps.

July 26, 2022 5:00pm

I arrived home around 5:00pm and couldn’t wait to share my tales and pictures with my family. As we sat down for a family dinner I talked their ear off and didn’t stop for what seemed like hours. There was no space for questions or comments within my stream of consciousness. I was simply too excited by my adventures and newfound feelings of freedom. I consider this Chicago trip very successful and I cannot wait to go back.