Chicago Gleeventure

As you might know, we embarked on a Gleeventure this past weekend in Chicago. Though we didn't have the luck we were hoping to have, we did have fun, and we got to meet a couple of our followers, so that was pretty awesome. Here's a little breakdown of our trip, day by day:

Day 1: Friday
After getting a whopping 2 hours of sleep, Whitney and I woke up, stoked to make the 5 hour trek to Chi-Town. We left at 5:30 to meet up with Alison and Kim, and we were on the road by 6. After stopping for gas and coffee, and of course a bathroom break, we FINALLY made it to the AT&T store in Skokie, IL to meet Naya Rivera and Cory Monteith... Excpet we didn't. We got there, and we were all ready to go with our AT&T phones, all ready to get the wristbands that let us in. Welp, no such luck. The guy handing out the wristbands had just stopped handing them out. We were literally ten minutes too late. So... we were sad.

On the bright side, we had these two lovely ladies come up to us: Yep, Jenny and Caitlyn from www.nayarivera.net, and we got to meet some Twitter friends. The upside: They handed off the Santana Hand Clap to Naya for us! (Thanks again, girls! :) Still jealous of you!) As we waited, we decided to play trivia. Luckily, since we were like first in line for the games, since we didn't get wristbands to the Meet and Greet, we were early enough in the line to win some pretty sweet tickets. Yep, that's right. Whitney and I both won 2 tickets each for the show. It worked out nicely, since Kim didn't actually have a ticket to the show. Plus, these were better seats than we had originally purchased.

Well, after waiting around to see if we could be lucky enough to win the raffled off Meet & Greet wristbands... and pretty much groveling at the feet of the AT&T guy (who I still believe really wanted to give us wristbands...), we decided it was a lost cause. In the entertainment that was groveling, however, we handed off our bucket glist to Mr. AT&T (I wish I knew his name... he was pretty cool), and he handed it off to the cast.

Welp, they came out to say hi at the end of the meet and greet, so I was lucky enough to snap these sweet pics, even though I didn't get to meet them personally:

Cory in the AT&T Store

Cory and Naya wrapping it up inside.

Just walkin' out. NBD.

Lookin' good guys!

I think I'm in love...

Oh yeah, and this video of them leaving:

And when they were gone, we decided it was time for us to leave... So we went to Noodles across the street for lunch/dinner. On our way over... I got an email from our twitter account that said a certain Telly Kousakis had DM'ed @TroutyMouthBlog. Pretty sure I screamed "Aristotle John just Direct Messaged us!" And then me and Whit did the Naya Dance... I think that's how it happened. He was asking about what show we were going to, because we wanted to hand off the shirts. After lunch... let the Twitter assault begin...

We went to the hotel room to get cleaned up, grabbed the shirts, and then. "Telly, we're here. Telly, we've got shirts. Telly, come out!" and so on and so forth... Plus our awesome twitter followers were helpin' to grab his attention. After all but 15-20 people cleared away from the guard rail, I see this golf cart come speeding out from behind the busses. I screamed "Oh my gosh! That's Telly! AND JENNA! AND AMBER!!! Sure enough, they do a wraparound, and speed toward us. Whitney was trying to flash the shirts to let them know to come over to us, but I think he knew. He screamed "Give me the shirts give me the shirts" so Whitney handed them off. I said "I need a picture!" And as Jenna was telling me that they couldn't stop, I was able to pull this one off:

And just like that... in a whopping 20 seconds... they were there, took the shirts, and were gone.


Here's a picture of each of the shirts that we gave them:

Telly's

Naya's

Lea's

Jenna's

Heather's

Dianna's

Cory's

Darren's

Chord's

Kurt's

Ashley's

Amber's

Kevin's

Harry's

Mark's

After that, we decided to stay out and wait to see if the glee cast came out for autographs. Lucky for us, no one else waited through the show (except Jenny, who waited with us) and we got to choose the spot we wanted to hang out at. Sure enough, 20 minutes after the show ended, security guards came out and told us that they didn't know who was coming out, but the were coming out. Well, pretty much everyone came out... but they scattered around the crowd. Ok, so not everyone... but Lea, Chris, Amber, Jenna, Chord, Kevin, Harry, and Ashley came out. We only met Kevin, Harry, Lea, and Jenna...and kind of Chord, but he didn't sign anything, because Telly came out and Telly blocked us... and it was super amazing. Kevin and Harry are seriously two of the nicest people in the world. I was able to actually have like a mini conversation with them. Here are some sweet pics that we snagged: (Sorry about the alignment... Blogger kinda sucks...)

     

  

 

And that was pretty much it for Friday...

Day 2: Saturday
Saturday we woke up and decided to have lunch at Gino's East (Hey oh, Man vs Food!) It was amazeballs. Then we were contemplating going to post up outside of the Arena again see if they would come out after the 3:00 show. I don't think they did, so I'm pretty much glad that we didn't because it was raining. So, we just decided to eat dinner at Portillos, and then grab some road beers and head to the show around 6:30. We got there, and it was on. We even found a sign in the fence that hadn't been written on, so we wrote "All the way from 'Down Under'" on it, in honor of Kim being from Australia. So many people were there and our seats were a definite upgrade.

Then LXD started. If you haven't seen LXD dance, just wait until my next post, when I put up some pics and vids from the concert. I pretty much recorded the whole thing, but it will take forever to upload all the videos tonight. Seriously, they were awesome. I don't understand how people can move their bodies like that, but they can. And they did it amazingly.

Then... the show. People say this show was made up of tweens and their parents. That's bull malarky. I think it was made up of 20 somethings wanting to stare at the attractiveness that is the men and women of this show. Seriously, they couldn't get hotter.

Not to mention, they're all so talented. From the moment they step on to the stage, you can't stop watching them. They work the stage, sing their hearts out, dance like it's nobody else's business, and totally rocked it.

...AND THOSE ENCORES! Oh em glee. Those encores made my life. From Kurt rockin' his "Single Ladies" look, to the incredible dance moves of one Kevin McHale during the "Safety Dance", to the hip-hop stylings of Kev, Cory, and Mark during "Empire State of Mind"... it was all mind blowing. Oh, and don't forget Glee Unplugged where Mark bashfully suggests that they opened for the Warblers (yeah, right) and acoustically rocked out to Rebecca Black's "Friday". Then finally finishing up with "Somebody to Love" which is always a fan favorite.

Seriously, the end of that show was the best part of the whole show. The only disappointment I had faced was no "Don't Rain on my Parade" by Lea Michele. She sang it in Vegas and it sent chills... seriously... I was sad that she didn't sing it this time! But other than that, the show was ace.

I'll post some pics/vids tomorrow, hopefully!

Peace. Love. Glee.

-Bonnie