After making perfect attendance thus far in senior year, I have finally succumbed to the pressures of society and ditched school.

What did I do on my day off, you may ask? Well, allow me to show you: I went to the Cubs World Series Champs rally.

Keep scrolling down to hear about my Ferris Bueller-esque day…

5:30 a.m.

I am blessing you without a picture for this time. Please, read my article from Wednesday, and you’ll understand how tired I must’ve been.

Anyways, I woke up and somehow got dressed, ate breakfast and looked presentable by 6:10 when my boyfriend picked me up to go to the train station. (Also, just an FYI, I wore a Naperville hat all day not to look like I can’t escape the Naperville bubble, but because it was the only hat I could find. Also, I work at the City.

7:00 a.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

We had been at the train station for just under and hour and it was packed. We fought through crowds of people and successfully boarded our train to Chicago.

At this point, I was shocked. I thought that the train would be packed and we wouldn’t be able to sit. Luckily, however, we all had our own seats and I was able to doze off a bit for the thirty minute ride into the city.

7:45 a.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

We met up with our friend from another Chicago suburb and finally ventured out into the packed streets of our city. We had decided the night before to go to Grant Park and watch the rally because we wanted to hear the team speak.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

This is on the way to the security check, and you can see people standing everywhere and absolute chaos.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

Oh, and here is a helpful view of how much room each of us had at this point. We were all body to body and getting uncomfortably close with the strangers around us… but hey, anything for the Cubbies right??Photo by Lexi Haskell

This is a photo of a news helicopter flying over us. The photo doesn’t do it justice, but it was flying SO LOW. Granted I’ve never had much experience with helicopters but I have never seen one flying so low to us.

8:45 a.m.

We are finally through security!! I was honestly expecting much worse so kudos to the Chicago police for getting us through so quickly.

There was a strict no beverage rule for the rally. Along the line, various other forms of alcohol were left and shards of glass littered the streets. I was very happy I wore gym shoes.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

We now walked into Grant park. This picture is from the VERY back of it and in the front, you can see a teeny tiny stage where the Cubs players would be. I figured it would already be packed at this time, but fortunately it wasn’t. We kept walking forward.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

Thanks to the rain from the night before, Grant park became a swamp. Unfortunately, some of my friends wore white converse… Just take a look at my black gym shoes and I’m sure you can imagine what their shoes looked like.

9:00 a.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

We have three hours to kill so we wait.

9:45 a.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

iPhone panorama time!! We had finally found a spot in the crowd and I quickly began documenting our location. We were SO close! The picture makes the stage look far away, but the tall people in our group could easily see the stage. We were so excited.

10:00 a.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

Well, the rally didn’t begin until noon. We had to wait three hours in deep, wet mud so we couldn’t even sit down. We played some campfire-esque games and resorted to braiding hair. It wasn’t much fun, but hey the Cubs are worth it.

10:30 a.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

Waiting...

11:00 a.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

Sorry for the awkward angle of this photo, but I am not blessed with height. Anyways, here is the crowd BEHIND us. Holy cow. And yes, we were super bored and antsy at this point. Shoutout to one of our friends for bringing snacks.

11:30 a.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

Still waiting...

12:00 p.m.

Is it finally starting??? Highlights from the season are played on the giant TV, and the crowd gets excited.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

I couldn’t get a good picture of this, but the air traffic was crazy. At one point I counted a dozen helicopters and planes in the sky. The entire 100,000 people in Grant Park watched them in anticipation as they neared our stage. They were following the parade so each time they moved towards us, a rumble rolled through the crowd.

12:30 p.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

IT’S STARTING!!!! The team’s owners speak as well as Joe Maddon, other members of management AND THEN the players!!!

I have never heard louder cheering. The only way this could get better is if Bill Murray showed up!

I got chills every time “World Series Champs” was said and each time a player got choked up. The energy and excitement in the crowd was tangible and I can’t even put my emotions into words.

After growing up a Cubs fan and watching my grandparents and father live and die with every loss, I never would have guessed I would be standing here at 17. It was one of the most surreal and intense experiences I have lived through and I loved every single second of it.

Finally, at the end of the rally, Brett Eldrich (apparently a famous country singer? I’m not a big country fan) lead the entire crowd in singing “Go Cubs Go” and this was the best part of the entire day. Hands down. I will remember this moment forever because I have never felt such community before.

My hometown has only a little more people in it than this entire crowd did. That really put things in perspective for me and showed me how dang big this crowd was. And guess what, we were all united for the same thing. All of us. That was the coolest part. Ugh. I can’t even put this into words.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

At the end of the song, there were fireworks and some jerks put up this poster. Although it was cool, it completely blocked our view and our entire section began a “Put down the sign” chant.

1:30 p.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

After becoming comfortable in our new home for the past four hours, it’s finally time to leave. I was dreading this moment. I mean, take a quick look back at the photos of the people behind us. We were NEVER going to get out of here!! Well, to my surprise, leaving was relatively easy.

“We are the Champions” blasted as we left and my group of 12 conga line-ed it out of the park while singing along at the top of our lungs. It was amazing and one of the best memories I have of the day.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

Here I am, at the very back of Grant park. Look at the mass exodus and how ruined the grass got since my photo from 8:45!!

Okay, so when people are in crowds, they do stupid stuff. We ended up walking THROUGH a bush to get out. Funny enough, though, as soon as we got through the bush, we realized that the entrance to where we wanted to go was not even twenty feet to our right. Oops. Sorry, Chicago.

2:30 p.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

OKAY. So at this point we finally made it OUT of Grant park. Look at this trash. I have never seen this many bottles in one place, but it kinda made me sad. I felt a really strong urge to begin saving the environment because HOLY COW this is a LOT of waste.

Also, I felt grateful I wasn’t on the clean-up crew.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

So, the highlight of my day: HAMILTON! As we walked down Monroe street, we came across PrivateBank theatre where Hamilton is playing! If you know nothing about me, you should know I am obsessed with this musical. It’s so bad that I don’t even listen to normal music at this point, just the Hamilton soundtrack. And I have no regrets. I am going to see Hamilton in February and this unforeseen run-in with my favorite show made me (literally) jump and freak out. Oops.

3:00 p.m.Photo by Lexi Haskell

So we had finally gotten far enough away from the crowds to regroup and discuss our plans for the rest of the day. We decided to get some lunch and then go home. Also, what is a day without an egg selfie?

3:30 p.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

There was a 4:00 train we decided to catch so we arrived at Union Station at 3:00. Pardon the blurry picture, but holy cow look how packed it is! In all my times at Union Station, I have never seen another person. Yet today it is literally a sea of human beings.

This was especially funny because we thought we were smart by "waiting out" the train lines by getting food first. As my friend Reed put it, "Why do five million other people always have the same ideas as me?"

4:45 p.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

We FINALLY get on a train to Naperville… and end up seeing almost our entire school. I heard a rumor that 500 people got called out of class today, and I think I found all of them on this train.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

As we finally get on the train to leave, I open my Chipotle. I had forgotten how hungry I was and for the first time that day, I get to eat more than a few Cheez-its.

5:30 p.m.

Photo by Lexi Haskell

And if we didn’t wait enough today, our train stops for twenty minutes. We have no clue why and everyone in our car is anxious to get home. After we kept moving, we learn that three people got ARRESTED on the train. What a perfect end to the day.

6:30 p.m.

I am home. From waiting and hunger to seeing the Cubs and laughing with my friends, today was definitely memorable. I will cherish the event forever and making up three tests on Monday will totally be worth it. Also, I cannot believe we were a part of the seventh largest gathering of people in the world!

And guess what! We made the aerial photo that news channels have been posting!

Thanks for reading about my adventure in Chicago, and, for the last time, GO CUBS GO!!!

Our group.

For more photos and videos from this event, check out my complete story at centraltimes.org!