The Tri-Village 8th grade class took a trip to Chicago at
the end of this month. It was a blast! It was from Thursday, the 25, to
Saturday, the 27.This is a good month! The beginning of the month was okay, but I (Mark) had a great end-of-month blast!
Putt-putt-putt... Dad bought a moped! Remember how I got one back in August? Well, since then Dad has gotten this "moped fever." So, he got on E-Bay and bought one. It's a small Italian moped, I think. It's orange and looks like a bicycle, but it runs really well. It even goes faster than my moped! Oh, well, it's not like your legally allowed to go faster than 25 anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. One problem, though; Dad and I sometimes like to ride places on them. We usually ride close together so we can be easily seen by other drivers, but sometimes he gets so absorbed in the view of the countryside that he starts to go faster than my moped can, so I'm falling behind until he notices that he's quite a bit in front of me! He slows down, and we have a laugh about it. It's allot of fun.
School fair! On the next day, Nick and I have a school fair parade to be in. Nick and I are both in junior high band, so we both got to march. We had fun doing that. Then we helped do a puppet show for some people back at the school.
The Tri-Village 8th grade class took a trip to Chicago at
the end of this month. It was a blast! It was from Thursday, the 25, to
Saturday, the 27.
I got up at about ten 'til five Thursday morning. I
ate breakfast and hitched a ride with a friend to the school where the bus was
waiting. This was a tour bus that we got on. It had the reclining seats,TVs,
and all the neat things tour buses have. Anyway, we got on the bus and made sure
everybody was on the bus before we left the school at about 6. Some of us slept, and
some of us watched the movie that was on the TV. We made a quick rest stop on the
way up. Other than that, it was a non-stop ride to Chicago!
At 11 o'clock (I'm on Chicago time now.) we got to the Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago. The outside architecture is really neat looking, with the big pillars and everything. We explored in there for an hour, looking at planes and other scientific stuff. Then we went into the Omnimax theater. It's like an Imax theater, but allot bigger! It was really neat! It was about earth and different places on it. There I bought a postcard and a gyroscope.
Next we went to the Navy Pier. There we looked at the
shops and ate lunch at the McDonald's they had. You wouldn't believe the prices!
They sold bottled water for $3 a bottle! I reluctantly bought lunch there and
ate that. Then we saw an Imax movie about the ocean and some of the critters in it.
But what made this movie special was the 3D glasses you watched it with. It
was really neat, then! It looked like some of those fish were coming to get you!
Then the movie was over and we left the Navy Pier.
By now we were more in the heart of downtown Chicago. Our next stop was Best Western of Chicago. In other words, we were heading for our hotel. We checked in at about 3. There was a big line for the elevators (You know, 50 people from school are wanting to go to their rooms). Unfortunately, my roommates and I were in the back of the line. After waiting 15 minutes for the elevators, there were still allot of people waiting to get on, so my friends and I just took the stairs. After running up 5 floors with a suitcase, you're a little winded! Then when we got to our room our cards to our rooms didn't work, so we ran back down the stairs again to get them changed, then ran back up again. Finally, we got into our room and settled in. Then we left again.
At around six we got to Ed Debevic's, the place we ate
supper at. It was neat there! The waiter people were really rude and mean.
Of, course, that's what makes it neat to eat there. They also made you wear
these funny little hats that said "Eat at Ed's" on them. The restaurant
has this 50's atmosphere which, I guess, accounts for the mood of the waiters and
waitresses. The food was really good, though.
Ever see those Pentium commercials with the weird-looking
blue guys in it? Well, they are known as the Blue Man Group. They do shows in
New York City, L. A., and Chicago. It's their music that plays in the commercials.
They play that stuff in the shows and also are really funny. They always have
that serious look, but then they do something that is funny and isn't expected, so that
makes it even funnier. Then there was this awesome strobe light thing going on while
a whole bunch of paper comes raining down on you. It's like toilet paper, but this
stuff is allot stronger. The show is about 2 hours long, and seats are about $50
each, but they're worth it.
From there we went up the Hancock tower. It was dark out, so we saw night-time Chicago. It was, like, a GREAT view!! You could see the Sears tower, the Navy Pier, and a ton of other buildings! It was great! Everybody got a little nervous, though, when a plane flew over us. Then it was time to go, so we all got into the elevator to go 94 stories down to the first floor. The elevator is fast, too. It takes you 94 stories in 40 seconds; That's over 2 floors a second! You're ears pop on the way up and down, too. Anyway, after a short trip down we reached the bottom, looked through some shops, and left.
Our last stop was ESPN Zone. There, we ate a dessert of ice cream. Then, we played arcade games on there until about 11:45. From there, we just walked the a few blocks from the Zone to our hotel, where we found a place for the stuff we bought, talked about our trip so far, and went to bed.
We got up the next
morning at 7. We reluctantly got out bed and got ready for the breakfast that being
served at 8. At 8, we got a breakfast buffet of bacon, eggs, sausage, pancakes, and
cereal. It was GOOD. Then, at 9, we got on the bus and made a quick stop at
the Navy pier again to take some pictures, then got on the bus again before heading for
the Field's Natural History Museum. We looked around in there for two
hours. It was a big place! It was too big to look at in two hours. Then
we went to the oceanarium. We looked at the penguins and whales while in
there. Then we saw a dolphin show, which was neat. Then we looked at more
critters before walking from there to the Alder Planetarium. We saw a show in the
planetarium and left there.
Have you ever heard of Rainforest Cafe? If you ever
visit Chicago, or any other big city, you have to eat at Rainforest. That place is
awesome! It is very elaborately decorated to look like a rainforest. We got
there early, so our food wasn't ready yet, so we left there and looked in some other
nearby stores. We also looked around in Hard Rock Cafe. That place is really
different! There were TV's with music videos playing everywhere in there. We
looked in the gift shop there and walked back to Rainforest. We went back in there
and looked at the aquarium they had, and then it was time 
to
eat! We went upstairs to were our tables were. Shortly after we sat down we
got a big bowl of salad. Before we finished that they brought fries.
Before we had gotten started eating that, they brought hamburgers! Then pizza, then
more burgers! It was GREAT! All the food we could eat! After stuffing
ourselves, we went and bought some things from the shop in there. I bought a mug and
a camera. The camera I didn't want, but I was out of film for my other camera, so I
bought it for the crazy price of $12!! I didn't have much choice, though, because if
I didn't buy it, I wouldn't be able to get pictures of the Bulls game!
The game was very entertaining! First, we got to the United Center and looked at the statue of Michel Jordan they had outside the stadium. Then we went inside. There was still 45 minutes until the game started, so we all looked around inside the stadium. The concession prices were outrageous, too. A small pop was $3! Forget that! Then the game started. They had a really neat laser light show and everything. They were playing the Denver Nuggets that night. The Bulls were losing by 23 points at one point, but they bounced back and tied at 100 when the time ran out! Then went into overtime and ended up winning, which was good.
Ever have Chicago style pizza? It is VERY cheesy.
That's what we had for "dessert" after the Bulls game. The pizza
has and inch of cheese on it. It was very good pizza! I wasn't very hungry,
though, because of eating all that food at Rainforest. Then we went back to the
hotel for the night.
We got up at about 8 that morning to check out of the hotel and eat breakfast at the North Pier. We had eggs, toast, and sausage. It was neat eating there. Then we moved on to Michigan Avenue, also known as the "Magnificent Mile." We shopped all along there for a couple of hours. We visited Nike Town and a whole bunch of other places. When we got back to where we had to wait for the bus, we had to wait an hour because the bus had problems. That wasn't too bad, though. Then we went back to North Pier for more Chicago style pizza. After having a piece of that, we left to get back on the bus and made our way back from Chicago. From 2 or 3, we sat on the bus and watched more tapes along the way back. At about 8:30 we got back to New Madison. We got all our stuff unloaded and made our way home.
I had fun there in Chicago. It was allot of fun. I think Nick is going to go next year. He should. He'd have allot of fun in Chicago!
Mark Howell