Croatia Crushed and Chinatown Cruising

The main entrance to Chinatown.

I woke up at about nine today, as per usual, so that I could make it to the free breakfast in the dining hall before it closed at 9:30. I made it in with three minutes to spare, and I grabbed a bit of bacon, sausage, and a waffle at the waffle iron (without any anti-stick spray, which made it a surprisingly difficult challenge to remove in a single piece). I ate breakfast with the remainder of my house, and went upstairs to brush my teeth and find the location of the World Cup watch party. After about an hour and some amazing play by France, it became clear that they could not lose, and I went downstairs to meet up with the group heading into Chinatown.

You probably know the drill by now. The bus didn't come, so we walked to the train station. The train took a while to arrive, but the actual ride was at least pretty short. Once in Chinatown, we first walked over to a small square to get drinks. Afterwards, we made our way to the main festival. It seemed like all of the booths were selling basically the same items, namely, cheap, touristy souvenirs and bits of clothing. There were a few nice parts, such as the music and the petting zoo, but overall I was not extremely impressed. After exploring the different booths and counting the number of articles black-and-white striped clothing (71, in case you were wondering), we went back a couple blocks to the square where we had started to get lunch. I grabbed a BBQ pork bun along with a ham and egg one, which were both tasty. As there really was not much left to be done, we walked back to the group meeting spot and waited for everybody else to return.

My preferred study space.

The cool air of the dorm was so nice to return to from the humid 85 degree weather outside, and I took a shower to remove the aquatic evidence of my venture. The rest of my day was almost entirely composed of studying in the form of coming up with an idea for a project, preparing for a presentation tomorrow, and reviewing for a test.

I apologize for the short blog, but I didn't do very many cool things (its Chicago, duh) today. However, I'm sure that I'll have more to talk about tomorrow, when I will know a bit more about what I am doing for my main project!