Campaigning and Swing

On Friday we had to be at the office super early: at 8 o’clock, I had to get up at 5.00. We ended up chatting at WorldChicago until 8.45, bbecause some people were still not there. Anyway, we were split into two groups with a different candidate and suburb. We all took a yellow schoolbus and started the trip to Lombard and Naperville. I was at the Lombard group and we were supporting a Republican Chris Nybo running for state representative.




At the campaigning office we met the town mayor, who gave us a speech and badges to mark, that we are the honorary cityzens on Lombard. We talked a little bit of how the campaign works (everyone’s working there as a volunteer) and also the told us about the candidate. The we went out to the field. We were in goups on two or three and every group had a Chris Nybo volunteer with them. Basically we walked around the suburb, knocking on doors and spreading information about Chris Nybo. We only got three doors open, all old friendly ladies.









Back at the office, we went to the Polish Bakery next door and had a refreshing strawberry, dipped into chocolate. Then we were taken to a Mexican restaurant an we had some tacos and laughed a lot with the Estonians. The Naperville group arrived a bit after us. I’d say that they were more excited about their day, they were taken around the town and they actually did no campaigning.





All together we went back to the office of Organizing for America. It is an organization that grew out from the Obama campaign. We had an interesting introduction about the organization and how a lot of its work is based on civic engagement and volunteerism. They are now running a campaign to attract young people to vote. We helped a little with the preparation for canvassing on the next day.



After taping some of the people there we went to the office and had a got to meet Chris Nybo. The long workweek was over. We walked to the Millenium Park, where we met our host families and had some dinner. Then the swing lessons started. Greta danced with Jeff and Ruuben with Triin and I danced with Lauri. It was a lot of fun and not as hard as I thought it would be. But after the lesson I was very tired. We taped our host family for the volunteerism documentary and chatted with all the people and just fooled around with the Estonians. We also met Ruubens host, Kevin Hogan, who has taught English in Tapa. It was interesting to meet him and talk to him, he’s a great host.





We went home at about 8 o’clock, had some dirt cake (that’s a super good dessert made out of chocolate cream and Oreos). Still not ready for bed, we went downstairs and played some Earth-opoly with Alyssa and Jeff. We didn’t finish it, but I think I had some great chances to win.