Thursday June 26, 2025:

I was especially excited for this trip because it was to meet my closest friends in Chicago and celebrate my 21st birthday. I finished my packing in the morning, and after a nice and heavy breakfast, set off for the airport around 11. After checking in my bag and TSA, I had about an hour until my flight boarded, and I used the opportunity to grab something else to eat on the plane with whatever my mom packed me. After boarding, the flight was relaxing. I spent the whole time listening to music and playing games on my iPad, and arrived in Chicago around 8 PM. We were a bit delayed in reaching the gate, but we did eventually, and my boyfriend, whose flight had landed an hour ago, was waiting at the gate. I hugged him, obviously ecstatic since we hadn’t seen each other in a month, and then we headed to baggage claim. After that we grabbed a Lyft, and the drive back was quiet in the dark, as we admired the lights of Chicago. The plan was to stay at my friend Sarah’s apartment in Hyde Park (she’s a student at UChicago) and after about 30 minutes, we arrived and she let us in. Her boyfriend Andrew was already upstairs, as was our other best friend, who had arrived that morning. After lots of hugs and greetings we put on the newest season of Love Island and ordered Chinese Takeout from a nearby restaurant. I had never watched reality TV before except for the British show Taskmaster and some Bake Off, but it was weirdly addicting. Everyone is kind of silly and its so dramatic and the editing is hilarious and the music on point. It’s definitely a fun watch with friends. It was around midnight at this point, since we hadn’t ordered dinner until 10, so Sarah and her boyfriend left, while my other friend Thalia and my boyfriend settled down with me for the night. My friend was on the large couch, which was super comfy, and my boyfriend and I had the bedroom. Unfortunately there was a heat wave at the time, so it was absurdly hot, even with the fans on, and we struggled to sleep for a bit. After a while it cooled down, and we finally fell asleep.

Friday June 27, 2025:

At some point in the morning my boyfriend and I stumbled over to the other couch in the living room, which was much cooler, and slept for a while longer in a room that wasn’t so hot. Once we were all up around 10, we got ready and went to meet my other friend, who was taking us for brunch at the nearby Robust Coffee Shop. She and her boyfriend still had work, even if they were finishing early, so after brunch she had to head back to work while the rest of us wandered. Robust was quite nice; they had a solid breakfast menu, with a good avocado toast that I had, and good coffee. I’ve always loved oatmilk lattes from smaller coffee hshops. After brunch my boyfriend and friend and I walked about 30 minutes to the nearby Burnham Park Promontory Point, which is on the coast of Lake Michigan and has a good view. There was a beach right nearby, and Thalia and I changed into our swimsuits so we could swim in the lake. It was really refreshing in the heat, though I was thankful for the sunscreen. I didn’t personally get my hair or face wet because of my eczema, but I still had a lot of fun, and my boyfriend was able to dip his legs. He didn’t bring a swimsuit, unfortunately, so he didn’t go any further. We did this thing where I tried surfing on my friend’s back while they swam slowly along the bottom of the beach, which stayed shallow for quite a while. After rinsing off we got dressed again and then started the walk back to the apartment, with a stop at the Japanese Garden nearby. It was honestly pretty underwhelming compared to the Japanese Garden in San Francisco, which I have also been to. We spent a bit of time relaxing there, before my friend joined us, and we took a Lyft to ChinaTown. Her boyfriend was originally going to join us but the debate tournament he was in was running behind schedule, and he couldn’t make it. We wandered Chinatown for a bit and then grabbed dinner at Happy Lamb Hot Pot. We did half and half: half veggie for me and my friend and half meat for my boyfriend and other friend. I really loved it, and even tried quail eggs for the first time. We got desert at Mango Mango, a mango themed desert shop, where I had a vegan mango sorbet that was divine. Thalia and I spent time goofing around and even doing a random kickline. From there we took a Lyft back to the apartment, and took turns showering and continuing to watch Love Island. Andrew joined us after a bit, though he left with Sarah around 11 so they could go to bed.

Saturday June 28, 2025:

Today was the big day, my birthday! I was officially 21, and it was also a celebration for Sarah, who was turning 21 in around 10 days. Andrew was unfortunately unable to join us in the morning, but he would make it in the afternoon. After getting ready in a red sundress, the four of us walked to the nearby restaurant Medici on 57th for brunch. Their food was excellent; I had hueves rancheros, and my first legal drink! I ordered a mimosa, and while I originally did not get carded, to my disappointment, she came back and asked for my ID before serving it to me. I literally pumped my hand and said “yes!” out loud to her amusement, but I had also just gotten my new horizontal ID instead of my vertical one. From there we walked to the Metra station and took the train to Millenium Park. We saw some touristy stuff like the Bean/Cloud Gate and Millenium Stadium, which I enjoyed, and then did some shopping. Sarah was going to be a guest at a wedding in about a week and still needed a dress, so we went to Macy’s, then Nordstrom’s. Jason and Andrew, who had joined us at this point, unfortunately just were kind of sitting outside while the three of us searched for dresses, including some to try out for fun, and then all went into the dressing room to try. We helped each other zip things up and gave feedback. We found a dress at Macys that worked but wasn’t great, so we went to Nordstrom’s, where we hit the jackpot. The House of CB section was perfect, and I even tried on this pale yellow dress that had like a loofah decoration around the top. It was goofy and fun, and I’m proud to say that I found the dress that my friend ultimately ended up buying. It was the same when my sister and I were shopping for her prom dress: I found all three that she liked, and she bought one I picked as well. We walked around for a bit longer but it was hitting late afternoon at this point, and we didn’t want to leave because our dinner reservation was at 7. We ended up stopping at a Victoria’s Secret to shop a bit during their semi-annual sale, where I got a night top, and then we ended up getting some boba and chilling in a shop with AC for a while. From there we walked to an animal shelter nearby and played with the kittens and cats. This adorable gray kitten named Marmalade was in my lap for a while, though I had to take off one of my bracelets when he started chewing on it. I really want a cat one day, and a dog. We wandered along the waterfront of the Chicago River for a while, and then grabbed a quick snack at a Stan’s Donuts, before heading to the restaurant for dinner: Momotaro. It was absolutely divine Japanese food. We started with cocktails—I was partial to the sakegria since I love sweet drinks—and then we ordered. I had this amazingly umami mushroom udon with an egg and sweet potato tempura maki. It was a really fancy restaurant, and there was loud music playing. The vibes were stupendous, frankly. They knew it was a celebration of my and Sarah’s birthday, so when they brought our desert (a hibiscus coconut sorbet for me) there were candles for us to blow out. Waiting outside the restaurant, Thalia gave me a piggy back ride, and I felt on top of the world. I was surrounded by all my favorite people, a little tipsy, and having a great time. We took a Lyft back from there, and the boys picked up some hard lemonade while the three of us played with my friend’s pet cat. Back at Sarah’s apartment, we changed into comfy clothes and drank our hard lemonade while watching Love Island. Sarah and I are both huge lightweights, so it didn’t take much for us to be drunk. Luckily for me, I just get very happy and affectionate. There were also birthday gifts. I got Sarah this adorable plush squishmallow cat with a heating pad inside of it. Sarah got me one of my favorite duologies, King of Scars from Leigh Bardugo, and Thalia got me a book, Martyr, as well as a ceramic mug they made themself in the studio.

Sunday June 29, 2025:

We slept in again today morning, though Thalia had to leave early for their flight back to NYC. My boyfriend and I had another relaxing brunch at Medici at 57th again, though we tried new dishes this time, before stopping at the 57th Street Book Shop. It was raining lightly and I hate the damp feeling of rain, so we spent some time there. I love small stores, and got a copy of this Bluebeard retelling called Sour Cherry. I also started reading Martyr, which Thalia had gotten me, in the afternoon. Jason and I pretty much did nothing but relax in the apartment and cuddle after our brunch, since we didn’t wake up until like noon and have brunch at 2. It was basically a lunch, honestly. We met Sarah and Andrew at a ramen restaurant called Strings for dinner, and then headed back to the apartment to play poker. We made it a drinking game, where everytime you lost, you had to take a sip of your lemonade. I have never played poker before, so I had to have the rules pulled up next to me to figure out pocket aces versus flushes versus straights. However, because I was new to the game, I did really well. Sarah has a tendency to bluff a lot and I just kept calling her on bluffs when I thought my cards were good enough and then winning. I accidentally folded when I had a two-pair, which would have won me the game, but I got pocket aces twice, and won once when Sarah raised a lot and thought she had a straight, but misread one of the cards and it turned out my pocket aces were better. We finished off with more Love Island: at this point, I was invested in the saga of Jeremiah and Huda.

Monday June 30, 2025:

The rest of the week was quality time for my boyfriend and I, since Sarah and Andrew had work again. We took a Lyft to Lincoln Park and grabbed brunch at a restaurant called Nookie’s, which had a great green goddess egg skillet. I had also gotten a strawberry oatmilk matcha at a nearby coffee shop, but it was honestly not good, and I stole some of my boyfriend’s smoothie instead. From there we walked to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which we were pleasantly surprised to find was free. It was an amazing zoo, honestly. There were gorillas, lions, penguins, giraffes, zebras, anteaters, hippos, and even a polar bear, though he was hiding. I haven’t been to the zoo in a long while, and I had a lot of fun. It was really loud and crowded though, so I had to use my Loop Earplugs to get some quiet. We got a snack at the Bird Bar and Grill—pizza for him, watermelon for me—before walking out to the Benten Jima Island. The original plan had been to check out the Lincoln Park Conservatory, but it turns out that that place is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. This was the first time I had planned a trip and itinerary all on my own, but I wish I had done a bit more checking. Still, it’s good to know for next time. From there we spent some time in the Society Coffee Shop, where we shared some butter croissants and I sipped on a nice decaf latte while reading Martyr, which I had with me. It was peaceful and comfortable, and I love coffee shops. From there, we took a Lyft to Andrew’s apartment, where we all were planning on making dumplings. I’ve never made dumplings before, but the dough was prepared, and all we had to do was sautee the fillings. Meat for the others, and veggie for me. We made a truly absurd amount of dumplings, and it was honestly a lot of fun. My veggie dumplings were cabbage, carrot, and ginger, and after boiling, were excellent dipped in a little soy sauce. I learned how to roll out the dumplings, which was similar to rotis, and to fold dumplings, which everyone had a different way of doing. It was an excellent dinner, and we watched Love Island while eating again.

Tuesday July 1, 2025:

My boyfriend and I slept in a bit again today, before checking schedules. Our original plan was to check out the Art Institute of Chicago, but it was unfortunately closed. In hindsight and with a bit more planning, I would have done the Art Institute on Monday and Lincoln Park on Wednesday, but that switched instead. We took a Lyft to the Time Out Market on Fulton Street, which is this giant industrial building that was turned into a fancy food court. I grabbed lunch from Lil Amaru Latin Street Food—barbacoa jackfruit tacos and friend plantain—and it was actually heavenly. I cannot recommend this place more. My boyfriend grabbed dumplings and was also in love. I don’t think I’ve ever been to as nice of a food court. We even got a lemonade to split from a third stand. There are options for everyone: I saw Mediterranean, dumplings, ramen, burgers, smoothies, mochi, Latin, and Indian. We walked from there to Open Books, which is a giant bookstore for Used and Donated books. I spent a long time wandering, but ultimately didn’t get anything, though a few books interested me. We walked from there to Sawada Coffee, this very cool coffee shop and bar with a very hip vibe: lots of string lights and music. I grabbed a high five mocha, which was made with this bitter Japanese chocolate, and it was amazing. I think it’s the best mocha I’ve ever had; not too sweet, not too bitter, and it blended perfectly with the oatmilk and decaf espresso. We took a Lyft from there to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry because we had seen advertisements for a Spiderman exhibit there, and we are both huge comic book fans. I really enjoyed the museum, honestly. We went to the Spiderman exhibit, a mirror maze exhibit, a blue ocean exhibit, and a storm exhibit. The spiderman exhibit was stupendous, a comic nerd’s dream: it had costumes from the movies like the green goblin mask, original comic panels all the way to the original spiderman comics, and big statues of characters like Doc Ock and different versions of spiderman. It went all the way up until the present day, including the spiderverse movies and the most recent Clone Saga. The mirror maze was a bit distracting and hard to navigate honestly, and we were witness to the absolutely hilarious site of some little kids running through the maze screaming “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” before hitting a mirror with a loud BONK. The blue ocean part was about pollution and plastics, and the storm part had a tornado and one of the classic earthquake simulators you’re used to seeing in CA. We also checked out this exhibit on the history of cars, which had a bunch of cars all the way from the 1940’s to modern day F1 cars. We walked back to the apartment after the museum closed at 5 and showered and relaxed. Sarah and her boyfriend joined us after a while, and we got Mexican takeout and watched Love Island together.

Wednesday July 2, 2025:

Today was a chill day. We took a Lyft into the city and stopped at a restaurant called Goddess and the Baker for brunch. I had a stupendous oat milk latte, croissant, and breakfast egg tostada. I really loved their food, and it was nice and relaxing. We walked from there to the Art Institute of Chicago, and then spent the rest of the day wandering. I spent a lot of time in the exhibit on Asian art learning about Korean, Japanese, and Chinese historical artwork and pottery since I didn’t know a lot about it, but we had to speed up eventually. My favorite exhibits were the ones on Asian art and on statues from South Asia and Ancient Greece and Rome. I’m a huge nerd about Greek mythology and I recognized a lot of it and the myths behind it, which was really enjoyable for me to ramble about to my boyfriend. There were also some incredibly famous paintings there: Van Gogh’s self portrait, American Gothic, and two that were unfortunately not on display at the time, The Scream and The Great Wave. We didn’t realize that the last two were there until we visited the gift shop. Next time we do an art museum we are going to visit a gift shop first because that way you can tell what the most famous pieces are, since that is what they make merch about. There was even an entire section on arms and armaments, with suit armor and dozens of cool ancient swords and spears which were super shiny and cool, as well as an impressionist section. It was a lot of fun, especially since I had recently been to SF MOMA, and it was nice to contrast the ancient with modern art in my head. There was a modern art section, but we didn’t have enough time and favored the older stuff with lots of history behind it. After the museum we relaxed for a bit in Millenium Park in the shade while I read my book some more, and then walked right across the street for dinner at Hot Woks Cool Sushi. They had really good sushi for cheap. I had three dishes: tempura asparagus, tempura sweet potato, and a super veggie with mushroom, cucumber, and sweet potato tempura on it. This was our last day in Chicago together, so we absolutely made the most of it, spending the evening cuddling up together and watching the movie Kpop Demon Hunters on Netflix together. I really enjoyed it: the animation was gorgeous, the enemies to lovers storyline was good, the music was catchy, and the messaging about accepting yourself and loving yourself was gorgeous. I totally understood why it has been so popular. I was really glad I got to make the most of our day together, since we had missed each other, and wouldn’t see each other again for a while.

Thursday July 3, 2025:

I woke up in the morning alone, since Jason had to leave for the airport for his early morning flight. Sarah was in the apartment at 9 since she had to have the plumbers come in to fix something, and after getting ready and finishing my packing, I grabbed breakfast at Robust Coffee Shop. I had originally checked out Cafe Logan since it was closer to the apartment, but they didn’t have anything to eat, and I left just with an oatmilk latte. I got avocado toast and hash browns at Robust, which was delicious, before walking back in the sun listening to the soundtrack from Kpop Demon Hunters. I grabbed my stuff, took the Lyft to the airport, checked everything in, and went through security. It didn’t take as long as expected, so I had a couple hours at the airport. I grabbed something to eat at Frontera but it didn’t really suit me so I didn’t finish it, but it was only a two hour flight to Atlanta anyway. It was peaceful—I just finished reading my book Martyr and thought about it for a while. I really loved it. My family’s flight to Atlanta was delayed, so I met our family friend in the airport and we sat for a while with some hot chocolate and chatted. The mug my friend made me unfortunately broke because I had it in my carry bag instead of in my suitcase, which was silly of me, so I wrapped the pieces in some tissues so I could glue them together when I got home. My family finally joined us, and we drove to our family friend’s house where we had an amazing dinner at their house with another couple from Atlanta we know as well. I also got to meet their adorable pet shiba inu.

Atlanta:

Atlanta was a break compared to Chicago. There was overall a lot less running around. We had brunch and dinner together every day, all of us. The first day we went to see the new Jurassic World: Rebirth, which I thought was a good soft reboot for the franchise. It was fun, a had a bit more of the horror element of the original movie, as well as good cinematography and acting. Our parents went to see F1 at the same time as us three kids saw Jurassic World, and we got lunch at Chop Shop after that. They had good bowls, which I enjoyed. We also went to a temple, and to a gun range, where I shot a gun for the first time. It was a really unique experience, since I’ve never even thought about touching a gun before this. We did some shopping, and visited a cat shelter, as well as a brunch at another restaurant called J. Christopher’s and Fro Yo at Yogli Mogli. We went shopping at a nearby outlet mall in Woodstock. It was a good 4th of July weekend with family friends, and we left for home on Monday July 7. I had an excellent trip overall. Twelve days of travel, good times with friends and family, and an auspicious 21st birthday celebration.