Tuesday, April 25

So my calendar says I need to cancel Comcast soon. We don't want to pay for the one week we're here in May. No internet for May. I'll repeat..I won't be on the internet in May! Call me! 712.389.5933.

So this morning a few of us were going to meet at 8:30 to head over to the Chicago Board of Trade with Ryan as VIP guests. My alarm supposedly went off at 7, but I surely didn't hear it! I woke up at 8..said a bad word and had only a few minutes to get ready and get over to the Hilton hotel to meet everyone at 8:30. Well, it takes 20-25 minutes to get down there on the train, so I decided to splurge and just get a cab...that would only take 10-15 minutes. It was raining buckets this morning so I spent like 3 seconds on my hair...just let it go wet and wild...it was raining anyway!
Ten bucks later..I did get to the Hilton on time...I was happy!

The Chicago Board of Trade was amazing! We watched a short film on the history of the place and the hand signals and stuff and then went down to the floor just before 9:30. The bell went off, the clocks struck 9:30 and the hands went up, papers flew, voices raised! We stood there in awe for about 15 minutes, then started chatting with the communications director of the CBOT. She answered questions about the process and stuff. What I found interesting was the hand signals. There are different ones for buy and sell and how many. Oh, we visited the options market for agriculture. There's also a financial options market that we could have visited, too. Right next door. This room was big and had 4 or 5 pits. It really is like the game Pit if you've ever played it. Lots of yelling and trading. I'm amazed that these guys can negotiate and come to a deal with hand signals. Yes, I said guys. I only saw three women on the floor and they weren't the ones shouting. It would be a very stressful place to work, I decided.

After the CBOT, we went back to the Hilton for more sessions and lunch and more sessions. Well, of course I had my 10 page paper still on my mind, so I skipped the afternoon session after lunch and came back to the apartment to take a nap and gather my thoughts before writing.
I also had a baseball game to go to. The Cubs vs. the Florida Marlins at Wrigley Field.

I made a beautiful dinner for the ladies here and took off for Wrigley Field. Just getting off the train there were people selling shirts, peanuts, tickets, etc. ANYTHING you could want for a baseball game. I walked past the sellers and found my seat...my COLD seat. You see, it was freezing after the rain stopped. I heard it even snowed in some places today. Yikes.
So I attempted to warm up my seat and then gave up.
Wrigley Field was set up really neat. No one had a bad seat. I could even see the players' faces from my seat up in Section 263 seat 14. I was amazed at how low we could get before being asked our seat number. I could almost get to the lowest section of the field. Well, if I really tried, I probably could have gone all the way down to the bottom.
I tried to find Ryan, who had a seat behind home plate, but couldnt find him so I stood there like a fool and watched the players. I really don't like baseball. It's pretty boring unless you're really really into the game.
I walked back to my seat to find a ton of other Chicago Semester people there..finally! I found a little bit better of a seat and sat there beside Katie Helder and Jeff Navis. I don't think I would have stayed as long as I did if it wasn't for them. :)
The game started around 7:10ish. And you should be proud of me that I stayed all the way until 8:20! The score was 1-0 for the Cubs. Man, in baseball it seems that it's boring boring boring and then something interesting happens but we all miss what happens because it's so fast. The teams should get points for other things..then games would be more intersting. Like points for hits or bunts or cool pitches or hitting the players. Anyway, I nearly froze my fingers off, but I did manage to get a few pictures. I'll add them soon!