This is the introduction of what I hope will be able to be an ongoing (if infrequent) series of posts – travel diaries! I’ll spend a lot of time in Chicago and if anything interesting happens, you’ll be the first to know. But ideally, there will be some other interesting places in the mix, as well! So, for what I hope will be the first time of many:
This weekend, I was up in Chicago (again!) competing in a debate tournament. Since I don’t think I’ve mentioned it – I run a congressional-style debate team here on campus. Our previous president graduated at semester, and it was my first tournament as president. The lead-up to the tournament was insane, as people inevitably missed deadlines and unexpected tasks popped up around every corner. I was barely sleeping, and not just because I was busy – I was nervous, too. As far as I’m aware, I’m the only lady president in the league we compete in, and needless to say, I felt a lot of pressure to get everything right.
It’s a long trip from Champaign to Chicago, so I was up at four in the morning – only to find that we’d had a blizzard overnight. Which had delayed our train to Chicago. Which made us miss our train to the suburbs to compete. “At least it can’t get worse.” I said. (I take full responsibility for tempting fate that way.) We called an Uber cab, and our driver got us to the campus, where we promptly found that the address we’d been given was wrong and were forced to wander the campus in the cold, begging for directions until we found the building. The tournament itself was hectic and stressful, but that’s to be expected. At its end, with an armful of trophies, I was starting to feel hopeful.
Naturally, the Metra trains we took back into the city were delayed, and we got to Union Station ten minutes after the last train back to Champaign left. Since my boyfriend’s college is in the city, I had planned on spending the weekend with him, but the rest of my team had planned on being home that night. At this point, I was fighting off tears. My first tournament as president had been an unparalleled disaster and panic was setting in. I got a minor pep talk from the boy and composed myself enough to start thinking about solutions. A few phone calls to alumni later, the team had a place to sleep and a ride to the bus station in the morning, and I was able to go for a romantic night out on the town with the boy.
By “night out on the town” I mean we ordered a pizza and after eating half of it, I starfished – face down – on the bed and slept for fourteen hours. What can I say, I’m a romantic.
It would be way too easy to just write the weekend off as a massive failure, but I like to think I learned from it. First lesson – do not underestimate how much work coordinating travel is. Second lesson – do not expect anything to be on time. Third lesson – glory be to Uber, all praise be unto them. Seriously, I’m not sure how we would have managed without them.
And hey, some interesting things did happen. A previous tournament-planning fiasco that resulted in having to book part of a sleeper car for some teammates provided us with a tiny room of our own on the train, which was very Harry Potter and very cool. The boys pulled down the bunk beds along the walls and caught up on sleep, and I semi-frantically coordinated alternative travel plans from what felt like a tiny, private, rolling office.
I usually go up to Chicago for visits on a Friday night train, and come back on a Sunday night one, which means I’ve never seen Union Station’s Great Hall in the daylight, and it. is. stunning:
So was the trip stressful? Incredibly. Did I learn something? More like a lot of somethings. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Am I unbelievably relieved that the next tournament is here at the good old U of I and we won’t have to travel? You’d better believe it.
Have you ever had a travel disaster? How did you handle it?
