Last Day in The Windy City

Breakfast at the Omni!

I had a real breakfast today! The UChicago your was at 8:30 AM so we made sure we had enough time and had breakfast at 6:45 AM. I asked the cook from the buffet line to make me an omelette with spinach, mushrooms, bacon, ham, and cheese. It was delicious and probably a much healthier choice than what I'd usually get. Then it was time to check out. I'm going to miss that hotel.

Rockefeller Chapel

We took an averagely long cab ride to UChicago and pulled up to the Rockefeller Chapel, a gorgeous structure. The architecture of the entire school is very gothic and wonderful to look at. As a Harry Potter fan it makes me feel like I'm at Hogwarts. There was a one hour presentation given by the dean of admissions. I learned a lot about the admissions process and felt very informed afterwards. If there's any reason I'd apply to UChicago is because the application essays are so quirky and fun. The school really allows you to be yourself and express what you want. For example, a girl once wrote about two types of people. One group was the people she'd eat and the other was people she
wouldn't eat. So, yeah you get every kind of person at UChicago.

There was a half-hour panel of current students. They answered many questions and talked about their life at UChicago, reasons why they chose it, and what the core curriculum is like. What I found very appealing was the housing system. Again, makes me feel like going to Hogwarts because they get split into houses and they sit with their houses at the dining halls. Once it was over we got a tour of the campus. Like I mentioned, its architecture is very gothic and definitely more medieval times in a way. I did learn though that they don't necessarily have an engineering major, but have an option to prepare their students for a career in engineering. That's a little more encouraging because I was initially discouraged by the absence of the major. Honestly, I don't believe I enjoyed the tour as much because I had back pains since I was carrying my backpack with my laptop and other fairly heavy items inside.

The tour ended with some popsicles then we headed to the bookstore to check out the college apparel they had to offer. I didn't get a t-shirt like I did at Northwestern but I did buy a nice key chain, which saved us time from stopping by Walgreens before we headed to the airport later. By then we were rather hungry and decided to eat something local. If you're being a tourist somewhere and aren't a picky eater, why eat something you could easily get anywhere else?

Appetizers at Giordano's

Giordano's pizza it was! Mike chose some great appetizers for us: fried ravioli, garlic lemon wings, and some unexpected garlic fries. I wanted to try their deep dish, like we tried Lou Malnati's, because some people said Giordano's was better. In my opinion, I'm still way more in love with Zachary's Chicago Pizza. Giordano's didn't have enough sauce for me and Lou Malnati's crust was too buttery. Overall, I did enjoy our last lunch in Chicago.

View from the plane

It was a short walk to our hotel to pick up our luggage from the bellhop and ride the shuttle back to the airport. I can't say the same for the shuttle ride. Traffic was insane, and I though Bay Area traffic could get pretty bad I hadn't seen anything. We were still 2 hours early to the airport, and that left for some time to blog and grab a snack. I was able to buy a super cool Starbucks glass bottle that's part of their "You Were Here" collection and it had Chicago representative art all over it. Not long after it was time for departure and I can't say much about it because it was a short and smooth flight.

In comparison to the United Airlines airplane we took it was smaller, and as someone who had never flown before this trip it's kind of cool to be able to ride different planes. I expected to nap throughout the flight, but I was sitting next to Diana again so we talked the whole way. Then we arrived at the Detroit airport. I've only been to three airports so far, but the tunnel connecting the concourses definitely makes this airport seem very unique to me. It was filled with color, and I love bright and colorful things.

Awesome lights at the Detroit Aiport

Our flight to Ithaca was at 10:11 PM and we were all excited to see what Cornell University had to offer tomorrow.