Another Day, Another Slice

We saw mom as a cohort for the last time this trip before we leave, and, of course, we had pizza. Pizza has definitely been the themed food of this trip. Sure, there may be other foods that I might have gone on streaks with, but pizza has always been constant. From our first day here, to the day we moved in, to the present, I’ve had pizza almost every day. There was even a period in the beginning of the trip where I had it for several consecutive days. Some people exist (maybe even in this cohort, but I won’t say names) that view pizza as something that isn’t universally good. It pretty much is, regardless of shape or size. Of course, some pizza is objectively better than others, but pizza as an existence is just pleasant to consume.

"The Lou."

The restaurant that we ate at was Lou Manalti’s, which is another chain that feeds off of the hype surrounding Chicago’s reputation for having good deep-dish pizza. For some reason, they never have sufficient lighting in this type of restaurant; there are always just a couple of minuscule light bulbs screwed into the ceiling and maybe a couple of panes of glass near the entrance. Despite the restaurant being poorly lit and kind of tacky, with family photos on the wall in mismatched frames in an obvious attempt to make the restaurant feel more homely, I liked the pizza (of course), and we got to see mom one last time before return day.

After lunch, we went to Walgreen’s so Lindsay could buy hair dye. Last night, she and Jahnvi both had their hair dyed by Olivia, but I guess she wanted a different color or something. Anyway, while we were inside, I saw these huge bags of Sour Patch and Swedish Fish for around $5. These bags were like full gallons of sugar, and Jahnvi (who was debating whether or not to buy some kind of special Kisses) and I stood there for a good 10 minutes telling ourselves that it wasn’t worth it. Eventually, I had to physically distance myself from them in case I gave in to my cravings, so I went to one of the photo-printing kiosks because there were chairs in front of them. We left soon after that, but the candy episode was quite the mental challenge.

When we left Walgreen’s, we split up. Everyone wanted to go shopping, but I wanted to go to the beach, since I knew that I would spend more money if I went with them. I’ve already spent so much on food and transportation, and I also have enough clothing. Olivia decided that she wanted to come with me, so off we went.

I calculated that the cheapest mode of transportation from the campus to the beach would be to rent Divvy bikes. Divvy bikes are basically these bikes that you can pay to rent out all day, but for 30-minute periods each time. There are stations all over the city in places with a lot of foot traffic, so it’s a pretty good alternative to taking public transport or Uber-ing everywhere. The bike ride was fairly uneventful; there weren’t many cars, and the scenery was fairly unornamented. The whole process, from actually getting the bikes to riding to the beach took 10 minutes at most.

The water in Lake Michigan was so clean, but also incredibly cold. We set our stuff on some rocks on the peninsula known as Promontory Point, or “The Point” for short, and were surprised when we slid into the water. There was a lot of sun projecting onto the water, so we had expected it to be warm, but that wasn’t the case. However, I got used to the temperature quickly enough, and it was really refreshing on such a hot day. 

The view from Promontory Point.

I spent around half an hour in the water, then slept on the rocks. After a while, we realized that we would miss dinner if we didn’t get back to campus, so we grabbed our Divvys and rode back. We were through the doors of the dining hall 2 minutes before the doors closed for the day. It was a close call, and even though literally all I did before that was eat, play in water, and sleep, I decided that I had been stimulated enough for one day so I went back to my dorm to sleep after dinner.