Chicago

Labor Day in Chicago

September of this year(2005) was my first Labor day away from my family. I was finally tasting the freedom that I had desperately waited for all summer- long. Now that I was in college I could pretty much do what-ever I want. Therefore I decided to take a train to Chicago to visit my girlfriend, Leslie. Everything was great, all up until Monday morning.

"OH MY GOD, I MISSED MY TRAIN DIDN'T I!"

Leslie gave me a grave look and I knew it was true. My train was leaving at 8:15AM. And that was in three minutes! I knew I was screwed. After struggling with what seemed to be a hopeless experience of chaos, we went back to Leslie's room and went back to bed. I woke up two hours later, in attempt to find a back-up plan. Stressfully, Leslie and I thought it over and decided to check into a bus line. www.greyhound.com gave me the answer I was looking for. In one hour a bus was heading to St. Louis, but the bus would not arrive there until 10:10PM that night. Leslie and I said our good-byes then I got on the bus. Even though I missed my train, I was glad to have spent extra time with her on Labor Day.

Luckily two of my suit mates came and got me from the greyhound station in one of the most ghetto areas of downtown St. Louis that night. Even though I would have traveled eleven hours this Labor Day, the ride back to MSU was not so bad. I got to swap

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exciting weekend stories with my new friends, Mike and James. I told them about all of the things I did in Chicago, and how much fun I had.

I left for Chicago on a Thursday night, missing my late night art class from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM and all of my classes on Friday. On Thursday night, I stayed at my house in Webster after hanging out with Chris and Mike, two of my best friends from high school. On Friday afternoon, Chris and I played frisbee, one of our favorite pastimes, only an hour before I had to leave to get to the train station. The Amtrak cost close to a hundred dollars, all of which came straight from my banking account. Although this was not a cheap trip, (mostly because the holiday fares usually cost a lot more,) it was definitely worth it to see the one person that I care for more than any one else in my life. Later, Pat, a good friend of mine from Webster gave me a ride to the train station at 2:30 PM so that I could catch my 3:10PM train.

I thought that the train ride was going to be more strenuous that it actually was for me. Leslie has taken this train route about five more times than I have, so I had heard from her many times about how much she despised the strenuous five and a half hour trip. Luckily I had my sketch pad, IPOD, and a keen interest in travel to make the journey go by quickly.

I arrived in downtown Chicago around 8:45 PM to where I felt a tingling sensation in my stomach when I saw Leslie looking at me from a distance. At the time I was actually calling her phone. I put my cell away and hurried towards her to finally feel the familiar love I had already missed so greatly. It felt so amazing to hug and kiss her once again. Yet, this was no strange feeling for me. In 2004, we went for nearly a month without

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seeing each other, the longest period we have been separated. I will never forget the ecstatic feeling I had when I saw her comforting face, and we finally embraced together. We took the "L" train for about thirty minutes north-bound until we arrived at Loyola University.

We were walking from the familiar "L" stop that I had gotten acquainted with last year, when I started to become excited to see her new and improved dorm room. I had already known her good friend and roommate, Allisa from the year before. After a good low key catch-up, we got together with some of her friends from school and went out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant downtown. After that, we went back to the dorm to hang out until we decided