Chicago

A slightly exaggerated version of events

by Zephyr Goza (age 14) May 2005

Although we had been to Chicago before, this was my family's first time first time playing tourist. Our friend Matt and his mother Kim decided to play tour guide and show us around the city.

We started out heading toward the Hancock Tower, passing by a few local attractions on the way. Unfortunately, one of these places was the American Girl Place, although I still have no idea what makes it so popular. Matt and I, both being teenage males, spent a total of about three minutes inside before making an action-packed escape through a sea of girls, down an elevator shaft, over a fiery pit of lava , through the air ducts, and past a desk of heavily armed security guards with orders to destroy us. Well, that was slightly exaggerated, but suffice it to say that we did retreat to the safety of the CompUSA next door.

Before too long, we ended up at the Hancock Tower. Rather than pay the admission fees Matt and I disguised ourselves as window washers and hijacked the window washing platform thingy to get to the top of the building. See the photo if you don't believe me. We got down by parachuting. Don't ask where we got parachutes.

Well, after a while we decided to go to Navy Pier. We hitched a ride by jumping on the roof of a limousine. Unfortunately, it crashed on the way and we ended up at the mall.

We conveniently found our parents there, and we decided to have a picnic lunch with them. In the middle the mall. No, really. I'm not making this up. Look at the photos.

So then Matt and I escaped our parents' evil clutches once again. We still wanted to go to Navy Pier, so we put together our portable speed boats and zipped over there. Unfortunately, some people didn't want us to go in (must have been the ninja outfits we were wearing), so we had to beat up the security guards to get in.

By this time we needed the bathroom, so we engaged on a long trek, following the signs. Unfortunately the signs led us through a place that looked suspiciously like Bangkok, underwater, through the basement of the Empire State Building, and across the street before delivering the promised restrooms.

Somehow, we were still on Navy Pier, so we went to the funhouse there, which was fun, but not a house.

Then we got free tickets to a rock concert. For real. The band was called Flood Ritual and wasn't bad, although it was a bit loud. Of course we didn't find our way there directly. We went (really) through a restaurant, the kitchens of said restaurant, and several places we probably weren't supposed to be before arriving at the show. We left the show to view the fireworks but during the finale were surrounded by Ninjas (real ones), so we escaped using our jetpacks. We almost collided with the fireworks, but escaped safely to Matt's house.

The end.