Week Five

"Let me tell your something. I’m from Chicago. I don’t break." -Barack Obama 

 This door is on the side of our library and it's opened twice a year. Once for convocation and again for graduation. 

 A huge thank you to my amazing mom for a care package containing all my favorite things! 

 On Friday I went downtown with some friends from the honors program. We tried to go to Millennium park but it closes at 11. 

 On Saturday I explored the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The weather has been so nice lately and yesterday was no exception! 

 Some close ups of some flowers and plants outside of the conservatory. 

Lincoln Park has the cutest neighborhoods filled with trees and I love walking around there. 

Week Four

"Chicago's one of the rare places where architecture is more visible." -Frank Gehry 

 We showed up to lecture pretty early this week and the building is right next to the lake so we decided to sit by the lake for a bit. I'd never noticed this statue in the courtyard near the lake and thought it was super random. 

 Our Information Commons, an extension of our library, is right on the lake and is all glass. This week when I was walking by I realized that we have little solar panels that rotate towards the sun. 

We took an honorary first month of school completed picture by the lake. That's my roommate Marianna in the middle and our adopted roommate Sierra from across the hall.

I went on a 360 retreat over the weekend which was focusing on adjusting to college and emphasized the honors program. We had older students talk to us about the honors program, team building activities and reflection time. This was us waiting for the late buses to pick us up from Loyola.  

 This was my main small group during the retreat that had had reflection talks with.

Loyola actually owns their own retreat center in Woodstock, IL. It's also the ecology campus so it's mindful of its eco footprint. 

Week Three

"You know what they say about Chicago. If you don't like the weather, just wait 15 minutes." -Ralph Kiner

We had a surprise fire drill on Thursday, the day before our first honors paper was due. The whole dorm had to evacuate so naturally I brought computer to finish my essay in the Chicago cold. Lucky for me our dorm dog, Alonzo, kept me company! 

We've made Friday girls night at this point and this Friday was no exception. We tried a Thai restaurant and loved it! This is my friend Cassie she lives next to me and is from Portland.

We took a shopping break Saturday to stop at a sandwich shop downtown and they actually serve you your food in a tin bucket! 

Heading back from the city on the L with these two lovely ladies; Mariana and Cassie!

This kind of puts in perspective how far Loyola actually is from downtown. It's technically in a suburb called Rogers Park. But obviously we can see downtown from the L stop. 

Week Two

"I'm impressed with the people in Chicago. Hollywood is hype, New York is talk, Chicago is work." -Michael Douglas 

We tried a new restaurant near campus since the dinning hall food gets old pretty quick.  

They had the prettiest rolls! Not really 100% sure what the sauce was that they made the design out of but it was yummy. 

Another huge thank you to Aunt Laura for her care package! It had all my favorite foods and I've been snacking nonstop!

There was a concert last night on campus, so obviously we went and made a girl's night out of it! 

Week One

"Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world." - Frank Lloyd Wright 

This picture was taken at my favorite spot on campus. It's usually cloudy since we're by the lake but on a clear day the water is super blue and you can see all the little boats as specks out on the lake. My orientation leader actually showed me this room in the Mundelein Center. It's almost like a greenhouse type room inside, so you can see out onto campus but I discovered that a few of the windows actually open so it's a great spot to take pictures of the East Quad and Information Center (that's the building to the right with all the glass).

This is my roommate Mariana. She's from Denver and we couldn't get along any better! 

Please excuse the awful iPhone quality. This was just from exploring downtown last night after dinner with some friends. 

Slightly better quality here, but I was totally unprepared and didn't bring a tripod. I took this during orientation. At night they rented out these trolley cars and took as all around the city. This was our last stop on the edge of Lake Michigan to see the entire city lit up at night. 

We had a New Year Fair on Saturday night in the East Quad to celebrate the first week of school. They had the typical games, face painting and tons of food. 

Last night I got to have a little mini high school reunion with some friends from Notre Dame. We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Pazzo and explored downtown.