~Eliwood10

After an itchy, painful, and sleepless week, I have fully recovered from the chicken pox!

Anyway, I got back Sunday afternoon from Chicago for Band and Choir Tour. I have mixed feelings on how it went, so I'll start with the negative stuff.

The Bad:

1. No free time. This is my biggest complaint. We were way over scheduled and the only time we had to ourselves was at night after curfew. As a result, everyone was dead tired by the time we got home. Also, everything we had to go the was so spread out we probably spent more time on the bus than anywhere else.

2. Expensive food. Almost every meal cost over $10. This forced me to have some budget meals at McDonald's.

3. No shopping time. The only time we had to shop around for souvenirs was an hour and a half at Navy Pier (spent eating) and at 9:00 one morning when I would rather be sleeping. In a desperate attempt to spend money on something other then food, I bought a hoodie at Wrigley Field for $49.

4. Nazi Tour Guides. This is probably the source of most problems for everybody (Including my Band teacher). Seriously, they wanted us to follow every rule exactly or we would be sent home, given 10 hours of detention, a week suspension and a parent/teacher conference, no more field trips or tours for the rest of our high school career, not be allowed to walk at graduation, and forfeit future trips for future groups (I'm not exaggerating at all, this is word for word what we were told). My band teacher was forced by the guides to do things we were paying them to do. The guides also lied to us about several things, including telling us that our hotel was going to file a lawsuit against the school for us being rambunctious teenagers in the pool (Even though last year's pool party was ten times worse).

5. Late-Night fire drill. On the last night in the hotel, there was an electrical fire that effected 3 rooms (none belonged to anyone from our school), was immediately put out, but the entire building was evacuated at 4:00 am, and we had to stand out in the cold night for an hour before we were let back in.

OK, no one likes to dwell on the negative, so I'll move on.

The Good:

1. We got to see "Wicked"! This play was amazing. A lot better then I thought it would be. I pretty much hate everyone in the Wizard of Oz now, though.

2. Cubs game. As much as I HATE the Chicago Cubs, I love Wrigley Field and had a good time at the game. And my $49 hoodie is way comfy.

3. Our performances were amazing. My group (The Wind Ensemble) performed at the Chicago Field Museum. The acoustics were terrible, but we were still the best group to perform there.

4. We flew. I love airplanes, and I love flying in them. I seriously feel safer in an airplane than on a roller coaster. The one drawback was that the in-flight movies sucked to high heaven.

5. I had fun. As annoying as all the negative stuff listed above was, I had a great time and I'm eagerly looking forward to next year.

So that was my trip in a nutshell. No TR (Tour Romance), but I'm sure I'll have better luck next year.