Road Trip Day 3 - Chicago

After the fact, I know. The thing about not staying in Holiday Inn Express like we usually do on road trips, time and wi-fi is hard to come by to blog.

Day 3 was spent exploring the city of Chicago. Coincidentally, we knew a lot of people who either lived in the area or happened to be able to conveniently pass through the area, so we got to meet up with a lot of people throughout the course of the day. We began the day at Intellegentsia Coffee downtown near Millennium Park. There, I had the best pour over coffee of my life, I know this because I was able to drink it black.

We first met up with Carli, someone we went to JWU with that is originally from the Chicago area and was home for the summer. Carli walked around the city with us where we took the cliche photo in front of the bean in Millennium Park and walked along the Magnificent Mile with us before meeting some others for lunch at Lou Malnati's for some deep dish pizza. At Lou's we met up with our host, Jenn (Rae's brother's friend from college) and Darien (my childhood friend from OK) who's boyfriend's aunt lives in Chicago and they find any opportunity to drive up from Memphis.

Stuffed from our deep dish pizzas and Pinkberry, we headed over to the Navy Pier. Since we decided to skip the $20 for the Sears Tower, we thought the $7 Ferris Wheel ride was a bargain. Still stuffed, we decided to walk back towards the Millennium Park area and I got to meet up with Carl (my friend I met in NYC at Most Promising Minority Student that will be interning at Leo Burnett in Chicago for the summer). After tea with Carl, we had some time to kill before dinner, so of course we did some shopping.

For dinner, we met up with Matt & Joe (Darien's boyfriend and his best friend from WI that came down for the day) and Madison and her boyfriend (Madison, another childhood friend who's family moved up to WI and she goes to college there) at the Grand Luxe Cafe.

Long story short - my day in Chicago made me realize a couple of things.
1. It's a very grown up thing to do to just casually meet up with old friends when you're in that area.
2. How cool is it to have friends in all different parts of the country?!
3. Mi amigos es su amigos. Between Rae and I, we have built up quite the network. I feel like I know her friends as well as she knows mine. And I'm glad we've both been able to meet each others friends and become friends.
4. And lastly, friendships can last past high school (and college) if those friendships are important to you.

We left early the next day for Sioux Falls, SD. Check out Rae's blog for our adventures in South Dakota.