Chicago, Land of Shiny Things!

Hello, all! Ok, so this weekend was super busy. I went down to Chicago to visit my friend Regina, who goes to Loyola, and to see my Dad who was there for a conference. After arriving on Friday, Regina, a couple of her friends, and I went to a sketch comedy show called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. They do 30 plays in 60 minutes, and the audience chooses the order of the shows. About half of them were funny, while the other half were a little weird and very political. I had a good time, though, it was definitely an experience! Then on Saturday I met my Dad downtown and we had lunch in Millenium park by the giant shiny kidney bean (see above). Afterwards we went to an art gallery in the northern part of downtown that specializes in poster art from Europe. For instance, there was an origianl of this poster on display:

After we traveled by foot to the Newberry Library, a huge and widely respected research library. It was a big nerdy thing to do, and we had fun doing it. Not only did we learn the origin of Hot Crossed Buns, we also looked up a book written about my ancestors on my mom's side, the Lyford family. Steven Lyford came over in the 1600s, so that's pretty neat. Then we got some coffee underneath the Hancock building to kill some time before our dinner reservations at six. We ate at North Pond, this really swanky restaurant in the Lincoln Park area. The food was really, really delicious! I loved being able to spend some time with my Dad, especially since this weekend was family weekend at Beloit and wouldn't have been able to see any of my family otherwise.

Later that night I went to a party at Regina's boyfriend's house. There were a lot of people there I didn't know, but everyone was really nice and interesting. Most of them went to the University of Chicago, so it was a party in celebration of their first week of classes, which was this past week. That was really weird to me because I've been at Beloit since August 15, and tomorrow is October! I hear they get out in the middle of June, which makes since. I like getting out in early May, though. It certainly helps to beat the rush of college students looking for summer jobs!

I traveled back home this morning and had a Theater for Social Action meeting that I ran at four. I know I haven't talked about my club involvement yet, so look forward to that on Tuesday (unless something else exciting happens that I absolutely have to share)!

Have a chipper week!

-Emily