the Wonderful Wexler Weekend

On Saturday the air conditioner broke down and we decided to spend as much time outside as possible, because it was quite warm inside, especially for them. We had a big family breakfast, chocolate pancakes and stuff. The first plan we had was Six Flags Great America amuzement park. It happened to be just 20 minutes away from our house. We arrived there at 10 o’clock. The car queues were awfully long, a huge amount of people were going there. I didn’t take my camera with me, it would have been really not easy to handle it, so I have no pictures of that day. Jeff was our pockets, so he had a camera and he took some pictures.

At first we tried some smaller carouselles, but they were not much. I was really afraid of the rollercoasters, they were just huge. But the next thing we went on was one of the fastest rollercoasters, the line was about 50 minutes, but it was worth it. We did a couple of rides with the rollercoasters, had Chinese food and then did some waterrides. It was all extremely amuzing. Lots of fun.

They also have a waterpark at Six Flags. It was just next to the american moiuntains. It had reached its capacity earlier, so they kicked everyone out at 5 pm and let us in. It was huge, we did the tornado and the tubes and some more cool stuff. At seven they closed the waterpark. We were exhausted by that time. We just had a funnel cake for the four of us and then Suzanne and Ken picked us up.

A huge, and I seriously mean huge mall was just 10 minutes from Six Flags. You know the signs they have at airports saying „10 minutes to terminal B“? They have those at that mall. We drove there, walked around the mall and then I found the Forever 21 store. Now why don’t we have that in Estonia? Clothes are a lot cheaper here and I bought myself two dresses, a shirt and a jacket. I also got a little something for Neti from the mall.

It was clearly too late to cook dinner, so we went to a Middle-Eastern restaurant. We sat outside, under the grapewines. Suzanne and Ken ordered all sorts of interesting thing for us to share and we had a late night dinner there. I found out that I love Middle-Eastern cuisine. At home we had some dirt cake, had a conversation about religion and went straight to bed.

On Sunday morning we had so many options what to do, it was impossible to decide. We ended up going to the Museum of Science and Industry. On our way we stopped by the Estonia House, that was unfortunately closed, but I saw a Saku beer advertisment there and a map of Estonia.





The museum was very catchy, we started with a live experiment show, saw some geography and weather stuff. The genetics part was very interesting and also the human body department. We had some light lunch there and also so an IMAX movie at Omnimax theatre. It was about the Hubble space telescope. The screen was all over the place and the sound system was outrageous. It made me want to become an astronaut.






Later on we drove to the down town, to the Navy Pier. We watched a Shanghai cirque show there. It was all about the abilities of the human body, some very dangerous athletic tricks. After that we walked on the Navy Pier, there was a stained glass museum and also some souvenir shops and nice eating places for example Bubba Gumps Shrimp Restaurant. We also took some pretty pictures there, as we could see the view of the city from the Pier. We had dinner at Harry Caray’s. Me and Greta tried chili for the first time, I loved it. We laughed a lot, especially at the part where we tried to explain them what are blood sausages and sauna (+vihtlemine). I felt like I’m from a strange country. When we went outside, we took some pictures of the city in the lights and drove home, where we went right to the bed, very tired.












Overall I was very satisfied with the weekend, I saw so much and got to spend a lot of time with my host family. I loved it.

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.