{"id":11911,"date":"2026-07-21T20:09:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/?p=11911"},"modified":"2026-08-02T20:13:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:13:06","slug":"charmed-by-chi-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/07\/charmed-by-chi-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Charmed by Chi-town"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Natalie Chernoff of Huntington Beach, California, had traveled through Chicago before, but never had walked around the city. After taking what she called a \u201crelaxing\u201d ride on the L, she could see how Chicago stood out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is really tall,\u201d Chernoff said. \u201cYou would just walk around the city and feel like you had to look up everywhere you went.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Out-of-state cherubs applauded Chicago’s public transportation. Lucy Camp of Mountain View, California, called it better than her own in Silicon Valley.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can’t go anywhere in California without a car, really; There’s no good public transportation,\u201d Camp said.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, one challenge for the out of towners was crossing busy streets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Chernoff said. \u201cSometimes people wouldn’t get across, and others would keep walking, and then we’d have to run ahead.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Several cherubs were inspired by the city, and couldn\u2019t get enough of it, including Katherine Xu of Wellesley, Massachusetts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChicago’s a beautiful city,\u201d Xu said. \u201cThere’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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Chicago native Sascha Keller, treading on old stomping grounds was \u201ckind of sad.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we’re here,\u201d she said of the cherubs program, which is based in Evanston, \u201cwe’re in the suburbs, it feels more secluded. But when we were downtown, I was like, \u2018Oh, my God, I’m so close to home. I’m not home.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She said she enjoyed having intimate knowledge of Chicago and helping fellow cherubs experience the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNavigating it,\u201d Keller said, \u201cit made me feel like I had a lot of aura.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cherubs explored downtown Chicago and found busy streets, bustling sidewalks and a new sense of belonging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":11302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[708],"class_list":["post-11911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city","category-going-to-chicago"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":708,"user_id":375,"is_guest":0,"slug":"zink26","display_name":"Alana Zink","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/df29e3286c2110ba543157c17d8bf63bc4ce34b74f4fe6196c5e370b90838e23?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Zink","first_name":"Alana","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11911"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12962,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911\/revisions\/12962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11911"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}