Chicago

My time in Chicago was wonderful thanks to the amazing generosity of everyone I met! I was constantly having food bought for me, constantly having people want to meet up with me and take care of me. I rode my bike around the first morning I was there and got a lot of my touristy type things out of the way, then started to meet up with people.

That afternoon I had the owner of Same Day Cafe in Logan Square take care of me and make me a wonderful lunch. Afterwards, I met up with a girl named Sasha for coffee, who so wonderfully offered to host me for the week! I stayed with her and her housemate a block away from Wrigley and experienced Chicago in a much different way than I ever was able to before, in a much less touristy way.
I was invited to dinner by Alex Evans and his wife Logan, so we went to Giordano's for a deep dish pizza. Alex's younger brother is epileptic and it was great talking to him about shared experiences. They invited me to their home afterwards and we hung out for a while before I went back to Sasha's for the evening. 
The next day we went to the Chicago hotdog festival and the Lincoln Park zoo before I went to meet up with another person who followed my story for lunch and her friend who's a cyclist. I'm not going to name her since she gave me alcohol as a minor haha. But she was a homebrewer and let me try a bit of her own craft as well as a glass of moonshine and a bottle of Pliny the Elder that we shared. Afterwards I rode my bike to meet up with another group of people at a bar before we went to one of their houses to hang out and grill and drink. We played chess and had steaks at their house in Noble Square. I headed back to the apartment in Wrigleyville and crashed for the evening.
Saturday morning I woke up really early and met up with a group to go on a 60 mile bike ride. We rode from Wicker Park to Highland Park and back and I had a really good time meeting up with those guys. It was the largest group ride I had ever been on, with over 100 riders, and we never even left city. Afterwards I went back to the apartment and took a wonderful nap, and when I woke up we started setting up for a house party, which included me stringing up lights and hanging up all of the posters since I was the only one over 5'5".
That night we hosted a party and had a wonderful time, going outside occasionally to listen to the backstreet boys concert that was happening at Wrigley. People at the party were in disbelief that I had ridden my bike to Chicago and I became the star of the show, and was accepted with open arms.
I woke up at 7 the next day after falling asleep around 3, and went for a 10 kilometer run around the town. That afternoon Sasha and I went to the Market Days, a gay pride festival and explored, listening to a cover band that among other songs performed Rocket Man, Africa, and the Pokemon theme song. I had a humongous slice of pizza and went back to the apartment to watch television with Lily, Sasha, and Danielle.
I was contacted late at night by someone affiliated with the Cubs offering me a wonderful ticket to Monday's game! 
I woke up Monday and went for a 5 kilometer run, but my mind was in the game all day. I was so excited, the ticket was for a seat 20 feet away from third base! This was an extremely lazy day, trying to recover from the past few active days. I met up with Bill around 6:45, right before the game, and after introducing ourselves we went to our seats and I was awestruck.




The Cubs had a wonderful game against the Reds, beating them 15-5! Afterwards I was invited to meet a few of the players! I headed into the dugout and was greeted by Rizzo, Arrieta, Grimm, and Zobrist! I was ecstatic, I got to meet my favorite player, Jake Arrieta, while wearing his jersey! There were so many emotions going on and it was hard to take. After hanging out with them for about 15 minutes they had to go get on the bus so I went back to the apartment and tried to fall asleep while my mind was racing. 
Tuesday was my last day in town, with my train leaving at 1:45 from downtown Chicago. I woke up and hung out at the apartment for a little while before saying my goodbyes to Lily and Sasha. They were wonderful people and made my trip so much more amazing than it would've been if I hadn't have met them. I rode my bike down the lakefront to the loop and hung out for a couple of hours, just soaking in the city for a little longer.


I left from Union station at 1:45 in the afternoon, sitting beside a fellow UNT student and chatting with her the entire trip.
The train took 19 hours to get from Chicago to Longview and I was picked up by my dad at 8:30 Tuesday morning. This was an amazing trip and I'm still in awe of the generosity and hospitality that I experienced this entire time.

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