The stages of my journey to Chicago were as follows:
1) Shuttle from Flagstaff to Phoenix at 4:00am. Yuck! (Thank you so much Alida for giving me a ride to the parking lot!)
2) Plane from Sky Harbor to Cincinnati Airport via Delta Airlines. I had to wait in the airport for hooooouuuuurrsssss. But that was ok, because that way there was no stress about missing the flight (*cough* like going to St. Louis *cough*). I had a window seat, buuut it was rather bumpy the entire way. I don't do so well with that. I almost kissed the ground when we touched down at the Cincinnati Airport (which is in Kentucky actually, weird). Molly and her younger brother Cade came to pick me up. Yay Molly!!!! :D
3) Automobile from Cincinnati to the suburb West Chester with Molly and Cade. We ate at Chipotle and essentially got it for free because a lighting bolt struck right outside the building and knocked out the electric register. Sweet! I also shocked the heck out of Molly by pulling a sarcasm card and telling Cade to Eat it! when I suspected he didn't like one of my favorite movies. Haha. Molly and I also drove through our old neighborhood where we met on the bus in 2nd grade. :)
4) Automobile on Thursday afternoon from West Chester to Lafayette, Indiana. There was a slight foul up with Molly's fan belt, but soon we got that fixed by the local mechanic and were on our way. Molly was the official driver and I was the offical navigator. We both performed admirably and spent the few hours jamming to music and talking about boys, haha. :) We stayed at Molly's aunt and uncle's house. We ate at a restaurant called 9 Irish Brothers where I had amazing fish and chips! Molly's aunt also showed us around the college town and we got to see a little bit of Purdue. It reminded me a lot of a bigger version of NAU. I loved it. :)
5) Train (Amtrak) Friday morning from Lafayette to Chicago Union Station. Woke at 5:30 am for this one too, ugh. Haha, but Molly and I boarded without any fuss and the ride was quite comfortable. We watched the countryside roll past until it morphed into the skyscrapers of Chicago. Molly's cousin, Nathan, met us at the station and walked us to his apartment.
6) Buses, L trains, Metra trains, and taxis ( I think that's what they're called) all over the city. On Friday we spent the day in Nathan's care. His method of teaching us the local transportation system was to equip us with CTA cards that work on buses and the L and then to go places and have us follow. Get on this bus, get off, cross this street, run to this train, and you better follow or you'll get left behind!! We were so conditioned to this method that on Saturday, when Molly's other cousin, Jeremy, was our guide, he stepped out into the middle of the road and we just hopped off the curb and followed him. Turned out he was just looking down the street to see if the next bus was coming. He gave us the strangest look and we had to explain ourselves, haha. It was a great crash course though and we got to navigate by ourselves a couple times. Molly also got her first ride in a taxi when we took one to and from dinner with Nathan and his wife on Friday night. So yeah, all the transportation in itself was a great adventure. :)
Next up...our exploration of the city on Friday...
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