Chicago
Entry posted by Antiochus of Seleucia
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As mentioned in my last blog, I headed out for Chicago Friday. Our high school band was chosen to be in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in the Windy City. We were all excited and ready to go.
We were heading down the highway, it was nice and sunny out, nothing unusual, when all of a sudden it got really snowy and windy out. brown fields gave way to snow and slush everywhere. Suddenly the bus slowed down and came to a crawl. Uh oh. Traffic was backed up, and we found out why. Countless cars in the ditch, Semis bent out of shape, cars underneath semi trailers... it was a mess. Continuing on the snow stopped, it was sunny out again, and there was no snow to be seen anywhere.
Our first stop was some little school we were going to play a quick concert for. The band director of that school was once in training under our teacher, so they set this little thing up, since they we on the way. We were a little late, considering the conditions above, but we pulled it off without a hitch.
Our second stop was for food. There was this little area surrounding the highway that had all sorts of restaurants and such, so they let us off and we ran around everywhere. My friend Ryan and I went to Pizza Hut and ordered to go. We were so eager to dig into this grease-dripping heart-attack-in-a-box when we noticed we couldn't get back on the bus yet. We just went into the nearest restaurant, KFC, and ate our pizza there. 
To cleanse the pallate we walked over to a Wallgreens and bought ice cream. I got this Hagan Dasz thingy. After I ate half of it I decided to read the nutritional values thing. Let's see.... saturated fat.... 87%?!?!?! 
Everyone gasped in excitement when we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel outside Chicago. The 5-story building looked nice. I was rooming with my friends Andrew, Ryan, and Jason; on our last trip in Indianapolis, we got stuck with crappy rooms, and we were hoping it wouldnt be a repeat of last time. Oh boy, it wasn't. The rooms were awesome. Big screen tvs, super soft beds, and a refridgerator! We packed it with soda.
We had a few hours to burn, so I went swimming ( 
). I got bored after a while, so I went back and changed into my clothes. I then basically walked around the hallways sipping Mt Dew from my glass. I found the fitness room and burned 7 calories walking on the treadmill while drinking soda. After I left I coincidentally found the room of some of my other friends, and we played with a ouija board. I found out my girl was a lesbian and my friend Steve was a sexy beast. The thing also told me that I wouldn't die in a blaze of glory, but in the struggle for my life I would take someone with. Ok. Someone is pushing that eyeglass around.
Around 6:30 we left to attend a show called "Mideaval Times." We had supper there, which we had to eat with our fingers. Messy. They had guys doing tricks on horses, and jousting matches. I think we were a little too old for this, because I could easily tell it was pretty fake. The little kids loved it though. Some guy came around during the show and took a picture of my chica and I. I figured they wanted to sell it too us, and I knew I was going to be a sucker and buy it. The show was fun, but again, I think we were all a little old for it. As we were exiting into the main hall, I glanced over to the photo section, and sure enough, they had our picture, a LARGE picture, in a frame thing at the top of the rack where everyone could see. Great.... it made me blush.
Yea, I bought it...
We got back to the hotel and the teach asked me to stay and help him with something. Boom- first thing that pops into my mind, "***** now what happened?" Whenever a teacher asks you to stick around, it means something not the greatest has happened, and you are somehow involved. I know this because I never really do anything bad enough to merit alone time with a teacher. To reinforce my thoughts, he stopped Jason and Ryan, two of my roomies, also. *****. Teach said, "I need your help with something. Right before we left, we discovered that your room smelled like smoke, and we found ashes in the toilet." Great... just what I need.
Now, please allow me to make a long story short. Everyone who knew what happened were able to instantly narrow down whom may have done it to about 4 people. There are only few people in the whole band that is known to be associated with tobacco. After a discussion in our room, we basically knew who did it, but just had to prove it. What happened was that two of Jason's friends didn't follow him out of our room. Jason didn't have his key, so he couldn't get back in. The kids smoked in our bathroom, sprayed the place with Tag, and left. The way anyone even found out was because Andrew soon after got his jacket and left for the busses to Mideaval Times. Someone told him his jacket smelled like smoke.
Well, we managed to get enough evidence to prove it was the two specific individuals. First, we had a phone convo with culprit #1, on speakerphone, without him knowing it. Afterwards, Ryan realized his mp3 player had a built in micrphone. Woo hoo! Hard evidence was better than 3 earwitnesses. The next day before we left for the parade we set the mp3 player in the corner and invited the two kids down to talk about how we were going to sort this mess out. We got enough evidence on the recorder, and were happy to find out the four of us were not going to have to pay the $200 cleaning fee for the non-smoking room. Whew. Btw, stuff like this doesn't just happen everyday, so I was pretty mad and surprised I had to be part of it.
The next day we went over to the parade. We were number 102 in line of over 200 bands. It was around 32* because for some of the time it started to snow a little. It was super cold, so more than hald the band huddled together like penguins to stay warm. It was so fun, and it actually worked. I was fortunate to be near the center, and I stayed warm. Since we had to wait like an hour in this mess, the big huddle started singing "99 bottles of beer on the wall." It was the first time I ever sand through the whole song, and the whole mass jumped and cheered when we finished. I guess we even put on quite a spectacle for bystanders. Some drunk people even came over and joined us!
The parade was great, we got lots of cheers, and we were all really happy. The bus ride home was uneventful. My chica and I managed to find a comfortable position on our two seats and watched the movie on the bus tvs.
Now we await next year's trip to Washington DC.
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