Well, I finally made it to Chicago, it’s been a long day so far and probably the best word to describe it is hectic. Day first started off with about a 4 hours of sleep and then fishing packing up. Shortly after 10:15 AM, Coach Olney, my advisor for the event, and I departed for the airport. We managed to get the last covered parking spot after only a short wait at a local parking lot and shuttled over to the airport. It was really a smooth process checking in, going through the security lines (flashing my id seemingly to every TSA official I passed), and getting to the gate with a good 2 hours down time before our departure at 2:15.
Killing time was especially unamuzing, every other terminal had a booth giving away free airline tickets to anyone who would sign up for their VISA rewards miles card. At one point, I had even accepted some rather dull (but free) reading material from these stands and I probably know more about that card than the people trying to get others to sign up. What a crappy card. However that fun came to an eventual end as we boarded our plane and was nearly completely surrounded by other FBLA competitors and advisors. We took a rather ‘rough’ trip to Chicago. However taking off into turbulence for the first 10 minutes or so and a rather bumpy landing, we ended up in Chicago well enough as we had started. 
At the time we arrived, the weather was partly cloudy and very sunny. We walked about 40 miles, ended up at baggage claim, eventually received our luggage and finally managed to make it to the bus. We sat in the bus for another half an hour waiting on some others and watched the sky in the background start to get darker and more grey with each passing minute and eventually it started to downpour on us as we started to shuttle our way in.
The outskirts of the city weren’t necessarily the sight to behold in Chicago, however the downtown scene is what I was impressed with. Many specialty shops, coffee shops and bakeries, and a Starbucks on every other corner. Oh yeah, definitely getting coffee in the morning. We checked into our rooms after some delay and kicked back for a few minutesn. Looking out the window of the 6th floor, you can actually see the Chicago Tribune peaking out over the roof of the building across the street. After that, we set off to the streets of Chicago.
So my advisor and I walked around half-starved in hopes of finding some good Chicago style Pizzaria… And we found one, with a wait time of near an hour. Well that wasn’t going to do… The smell of food in the air (much less incredible Chicago style pizza) was enough to craze a person. So we found a local sub shop around the corner, afterall it just wouldn’t seem fitting to travel some 600 miles and eat at a Subway or McDonalds. Afterwards we just kept walking around until we had to meet up at the conference center for a Georgia FBLA meeting.
It lasted about an hour and 45 minutes and it just went over who the Georgia FBLA officers are, the ground rules, and other materials that we had not received up to that point. Immediately following I spent some time on the ground meeting up with some people I had met back when I had to head up to Dalton for test corrections and to get more information in regards to the trip. I met up with them and we went to go chill out at a, SUBWAY! (I know that I had said it wasn’t fitting to travel far and eat fast food, but I had already had dinner =P )
On the way over to Subway however, I did see a couple of musicians playing on the street corner of Michigan Ave. They played some cool blues rythms that seemed to echo even over the street noise and traffic. Just another noteworthy neat thing =]
Side Note: One thing I have most certainly noticed at this point (and I’m sure this is in every city), but there are a good number of beggars around on various street corners and walls. In fact, the first one that I walked by lit up a cig while he was begging us for change.
Tip. When begging, do not consume things that are looked down upon society. This reflects how you spend your tax free income.
Well, I’m off to bed. Night.
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