Being out of college, this is the first year I didn't take some sort of service trip for spring break. I had wanted to do some sort of community service this spring break and spent 2 days with my grandma who broke her hip this winter; if that doesn't count as helping those in need, I'm not sure what does. My family had told me I would need to store up my patience for taking her on errands and to appointments but she really has nothing on 90 fifth graders.
Since I knew that I would not be taking a spring break trip in April, I jumped on the opportunity to go to Chicago with some friends from high school. Since many of my friends are graduating this May, they wanted to take a spring break trip that didn't take all week. While everyone else took the train down Friday morning, I had to work on Friday and found it worked best for me to take the train out of Battle Creek leaving at 9pm on Friday. This was my first time taking a train in the US, and let me tell you, Europe has rail transportation figured out much better than the US does. By the time the train got to Battle Creek it was 45 minutes late and we ended up in Chicago an hour later than scheduled. The only train rides that bad in Europe were in and out of Paris. The delay did give me some time to grade papers (two days before report cards went out).
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| Otters: the main reason we went to Shedd Aquarium |
Saturday we started the day at Shedd Aquarium and meet up with another friend who lives in Illinois and took the train up for the day. I hadn't been to an aquarium in years and hadn't been to Shedd since I was 10 so I really enjoyed it. We walked 2 miles in the aquarium alone (part of the 11 mile total for the day) and got to see some awesome aquatic life. They also had exhibits about sustainability in the Amazon and the Philippians which made my museum-nerd self happy.
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| This leafy sea dragon was posing for me |
After the aquarium we did the normal Chicago stuff, the Bean, pizza, cheesecake, and a brief stop in the American Girl Place to make my ten-year-old self happy. After resting (and grading for me) at the hotel for a bit, we went out to find a bar. Despite finding a bar that made a delicious milkshake martini, I was starting to feel like the old person in the group (even though I was the second youngest). Up until midnight two nights in a row was a stretch during college so now with 6am wake-ups it was especially challenging. The 6:30am walk to the train station came all too early, more so for everyone else as I found I was the only morning person in the group.
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| No trip to Chicago is complete without Pizza! |
I love every opportunity I get to travel, even if it is just a day. I find that every opportunity I have to travel is kindling for my wanderlust fire that I hope will never go out.
