Surrounded by skyscrapers with the breeze from Lake Michigan cooling their faces, cherubs from across the globe reveled in Chicago with its iconic skyline and deep-dish pizza.
Natalie Chernoff of Huntington Beach, California, had traveled through Chicago before, but never had walked around the city. After taking what she called a “relaxing” ride on the L, she could see how Chicago stood out.
“Everything is really tall,” Chernoff said. “You would just walk around the city and feel like you had to look up everywhere you went.”
Out-of-state cherubs applauded Chicago’s public transportation. Lucy Camp of Mountain View, California, called it better than her own in Silicon Valley.
“You can’t go anywhere in California without a car, really; There’s no good public transportation,” Camp said.
However, one challenge for the out of towners was crossing busy streets.
“We had a lot of trouble with crosswalks. Like, half of our group would get across the crosswalk, and then we would have to wait for the other half,” Chernoff said. “Sometimes people wouldn’t get across, and others would keep walking, and then we’d have to run ahead.”
Several cherubs were inspired by the city, and couldn’t get enough of it, including Katherine Xu of Wellesley, Massachusetts.
“Chicago’s a beautiful city,” Xu said. “There’s a lot going on at any given time. Also, it’s, like, the hub of the Midwest. I could definitely see myself back here.”
For Chicago native Sascha Keller, treading on old stomping grounds was “kind of sad.”
“When we’re here,” she said of the cherubs program, which is based in Evanston, “we’re in the suburbs, it feels more secluded. But when we were downtown, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so close to home. I’m not home.’”
She said she enjoyed having intimate knowledge of Chicago and helping fellow cherubs experience the city.
“Navigating it,” Keller said, “it made me feel like I had a lot of aura.”
