My Trip To Chicago, The Windy City in Illinois

Zoom-bump! Our flight, the United International Airlines, touched down onto the runway. We were finally in Chicago! We climbed out of the plane and stepped into the area. And OMG the airport looked just like a mall! There were restaurants,  shops and everything a mall would have. We went to get our bags at the baggage claim area. When we reached the area, I couldn’t  believe my eyes. The baggage area looked like some sort of luggage carousel!  We sort of forgot what we came there for, until we saw our luggage going to reach the end of the carousel. We were like “Wait, we’re here to get our luggage, not gawk at the luggages!” We ran to the end of the carousal and grabbed our luggage.

Then we headed to a tram to get a rental car and I nearly fell over with the speed. Finally, we got to the rental cars. We got a red Mitsubishi and we drove to our hotel. Downtown Chicago was much much flabbergasting than we thought it would be. The beautiful skyline, the rustic, historical buildings, the river’s view? I don’t even know where to begin! The sights were amazing, the smells were savory and sounds were like, well like New York Times Square everywhere! We reached the hotel, got our room on floor 11 room 20 with a beautiful view of the river with the First Lady (an archaeological boat tour) and other boats, peacefully sailing away, unpacked, and hit the sack.

The next morning, we got dressed, ate breakfast and got ready to explore! Good Morning Chicago! When we walked out of the hotel, we realized that it was more dazzling in the morning daylight than at night fall. I was continuously checking the time back at home on my watch (I had set my watch to Pacific timing instead of Central timing) until we reached Millenium Park. There we went to the Bean, a humongous, reflective, silver bean in the heart of the park. We took a lot of selfies and pictures, but after a while it was starting to really heat up, so we also got frosty tall cups of lemonade to quench our thirst. My parents got regular lemonade and I got blue raspberry flavoured lemonade just because it was blue, but it was surprisingly good.

At the park, we stumbled upon a water play area and since it was scorching, we decided to take a dip in the cool water. It was so  Elysian! We learned an hour later was a landmark in Chicago called the Crown Fountains. The fountain however was like nothing we’d ever seen. 2 tall walls with water streaming from it with LED lights making faces and after a few minutes the faces spouted water from the mouth and disappeared, reappearing with a different face doing the same thing. We went to a hot dog shack and we each got a Chicago veggie dog each, one of the you-have-got-to-try foods there. We also got to take pictures at Route 66, the historical route from one of my ela lesson.

Then we went to the river to board the First Lady, and we got in the front row, since my dad paid extra money so we could choose where we could sit. During the tour, it started to rain a little, so we went into the ship and bought 3 ponchos and 1 umbrella. We put the ponchos on and enjoyed the rest of the tour. Near the end, we floated into Lake Michigan, which smelled pungently like seafood and fish. After the tour, we ate at Nando’s and had dessert at the Nutella café. After that, it started to rain-hard. We got completely drenched, and ran to Smash Burger which was the closest area. Looks like everyone went there for refuge because of the rain. Smash Burger sure is having a good sale today. After dinner, we went back to the hotel under the 1 umbrella we had. By the time we reached our room, we were drenched, head-to-toe. On all of our phones, a weather alert came that with these conditions, there could be a flash flood. We dried off, got ready for bed in panic, and went to bed with the sounds of thunder, rain and lightning.

The next morning, we got ready to explore. Today we were traveling via car. Our red car was waiting for us, so we could just get in without waiting. My dad showed the person Who drove our car from the valet parking area our ticket and we were off. The first place we were going to was Chinatown. There we got toys from MiniSoc and I got a special Stitch and Angel puzzle keychain that I could clip on to my jeans. Then we got vanilla rolled ice cream, lollipops, ramen, Japanese cheesecake and sweet red bean mooncake(my first one of each!). 

After pictures at the We Love Chinatown booth, we went to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. We got to feel tornadoes, go inside the actual Zephyr train, go to a water play area, go in a really big tractor and take pictures, see chicks hatch and play with mice and chicks enclosed in a container. That made me want to buy some chicks when we got home. The chicks and mice were just so cute! We went to a lot of other exciting exhibits and we were there till the museum closed. We were so obsessed with the museum that they had to shoo us out of the museum.

After that, we went to Little India and ate an abundance of Indian food including chole bhature, hot chai, attukal paya, naan, chicken biryani and a lot of other delicacies we missed from home. Then, we went on a tour around Downtown Chicago on a pedi cab. We went back to our hotel and watched the fireworks from the First Lady and Navy Pier. Then we went to bed. Good night Chicago! Tomorrow is a new day!

The next morning, we got ready to explore! Today we were also going through the car. We got ou car and, again we were off on another adventure. First we went to Willis Tower to go to the Sky Deck. On the way to the elevator, we learned a lot about Chicago and the tower itself. Did you know that the Willis Tower is frequently struck by lightning, but rarely sustains damage? Soon, we reached the elevator and we boarded it to the 103^rd floor. 

There were screens in the elevator that was a presentation about what we were going to see and do. We stood in a long, long line to reach the deck. Finally, we reached the deck and took loads of pictures and we left our mark in the sky on a large sequin wall by writing our names and CA as in California. We also stood in the area where Ferris, Cameron and Sloane were being filmed in a movie. We bought souvenirs and went to the color factory. 

The Color Factory was a fun maze with activities that were about colors. We went to a mirror maze room, a horn music room, a confetti room and more! At the end, there was a surprise ball pit where we had a lot of fun. The balls and the room itself was teal and so was the ice cream that was served. The ice cream was delicious and it was honey dew flavoured. Throughout the adventure, we got to taste mystery pop rocks, have blue confetti taffy and delicious ice cream. We got souvenirs again and had an exquisite lunch of lobster rolls, fileted fish, tater tots seasoned with truffle salt and fresh yuzu lemonade.

Then we went to see the Leaning Tower of Niles. We took pictures with the mini sculpture of the tower, and then with the actual one, as if we were trying to push it and make it straight again. We also took pictures with the pool of water in front of it. We went to Barnes & Noble and got books and drinks. As we were strolling around the city, we saw fireflies! They were simply mystical. After that, we went to Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain which was absolutely supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but soon it started to rain. We ran under the umbrella to a bus stop for refuge. Then, my dad took the umbrella and ran to get our car. When the car came we jumped in. We drove to the hotel, completely drenched, had dinner, watched TV, and went to bed. 

The next day was our last day here in Chicago. We got ready, got into the car and drove to the Navy Pier. There we went on the Centennial Wheel, the Spinning Teacups Ride, a carousel and enjoyed a live🔴performance with The Mask. Then we got drinks, had lunch and went to the Children’s Museum where we kids could go and play in learning exhibits and more. While exploring the museum, I met 2 girls named Kaylee age 6 and Chloe age 8, who were from New Orleans, Louisiana, became my best friends, but it was very sad when they left. They told me that every year they come near Oakland, California (which is my home state) to visit cousins, so there was a chance we’d meet again. After hugs, they left. We continued to explore and eventually left. 

After the museum, we went to have lunch. We had deep dish pizza, cheese quesadillas, fish tacos, chow main and kung pao chicken. Then, we went to a butterfly house, where we could get 1 feeding stick each, dip it in artificial nectar  made from glucose, fructose, calcium salt, halide salt, amino acids, honey, fruit juices and feed it to the butterflies. We had a great time feeding the butterflies and on our way out we got butterfly-checked to see if there were any hitchhikers on us. Then, we went to Polk Brothers Park, where there were streams of water shooting out of the ground. We played in the water, took pictures with the giant P, went to the car parking and went to Halal Guys for some authentic halal food for dinner. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Today we woke up bright and early because we were leaving Chicago. We packed up, got our car and drove to the airport. We did a baggage check, dropped our luggage off and went to have lunch. After lunch, we went to the plane and boarded it. Fifteen minutes later, we dove into the sky and out of Chicago.  With heavy hearts and tears building up in our eyes, we left Chicago the windy city, the best experienced vacation area ever.