Assalamualaikum,
Yayy, I made it! Not even a week since the Part 2 post, and here I am with Part 3 *proud of myself* Lol. And all of these despite the fact that I have a draft that I need to submit by Tuesday, as well as a presentation that I need to present on Tuesday as well, along with some other work. Oh well.
Okay, so in Part 2, I wrote about how the last week of so of my time in England & Ireland was before returning to the States. So here’s a continuation of my winter trip in the US. When I arrived in Chicago O’Hare, I took the bus to go to Urbana-Champaign, IL, as I was staying over at UIUC with him and our other friends for a few days. On January 8th, Aiman & I took the bus to Chicago, since I had a job shadow with Huron Consulting Group. We met up with our friend, Fariz, in Chicago and stayed there for two nights.
On January 10th, we decided to go to Navy Pier for a while before heading to the airport, since our flight to Florida is late in the evening. So after checking out, we went to Navy Pier for some sight-seeing and lunch and a mini photoshoot 😀
Then it was time to flyyyyyy to Orlando, Florida for about a week! We’ve bought tickets to Universal Studios Orlando (and Universal Islands of Adventure as well), so it was time to explore the rides and see all there is to be seen.
And, of course, there’s the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!
Not to mention the must-have picture in front of the globe 😀
Oh oh oh, there’s Gringotts!
And the Hogwarts express train that takes you from Hogsmeade to King’s Cross Station
Here’s Hogsmeade, a place where Muggles can act like wizards and nobody gives a damn seeing people waving their interactive wands in front of mirrors, statues and windows.
I originally wanted to buy a one-day ticket to go to the Magical Kingdom at Disneyworld, but since it was quite a rainy week in Orlando, we decided not to. Instead, we spent one free day to walk around the area, explored some buffet(s) in the area, as well as being kids at the Magical Midway Park (or something of that sort), with go-karts and bumper cars and all. On our last day, after checking out from our hotel, we went for a lunch buffet before playing mini-golf and doing some mini souvenir shopping.
After returning to Chicago, I, once again, went to UIUC (since I left my other luggage with all the food that my parents brought from Malaysia). I stayed there for a couple of nights, had some movie nights and ice-skating with the gang there (wait, I can’t remember if the ice-skating happened before or after the trip to Orlando, but oh well). It was definitely a fun time to spend with a group of friends, and I returned to Madison shortly afterwards.
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So yeah, that concluded my winter trip stories for now. It’s currently the end of the third week of the Spring semester, and so far, everything is going on great (or good, at least). I’ll write another post on updates on the semester and things and activities planned so far so watch out for that post.
Until next time, stay awesome 🙂