Chicago

Every year I have run thus far, we have ended up having to fly into Chicago for the conference championships at least once. And every year this is about what happens. The night after we finish competing, it’s kind of tradition to go take the L-train to downtown Chicago to see everything. We usually find somewhere awesome to eat dinner, we then proceed to the Hancock Tower where you can go up 96 floors and look at the whole city from an observatory. It’s beautiful up there! Then at the base of the Hancock Tower is the Cheesecake Factory. And of course, you can’t just pass that up. So we always stop and get a piece of cheesecake, but only after spending plenty of time deciding which kind, of course, there are too many choices! We usually then continue to wander around a bit, just looking at all of the cool buildings and such. But after so long we get tired of getting asked for money by all the homeless people and we head back to the hotel. The fun doesn’t stop there. Some of us go down to the pool/hot tub/sauna, some make up dance skits and make fools of themselves while they perform them and we all watch, some just chat in the rooms, some watch movies, etc… Anyway, the great majority of the team ends up pulling an all-nighter, which is fun at the time, but we definitely pay for it on the plane and bus ride home. It’s pretty funny and really obvious that no one slept, when on the bus ride home it is dead silent because EVERYONE is asleep.
P.S. Brett actually flew out Saturday afternoon to Chicago and went and saw some sites downtown until the evening. (He wanted to come earlier and come to the meet, but unfortunately he's not old enough to rent a car, and we couldn't convince his parents to come because they had previous plans) Anyway, so he met us at our hotel Saturday evening, and he came with us downtown and stuff and it was way fun, then he flew home Sunday morning. Oh the benefits of being able to fly for free!