41 Hours in Champaign

For the first time since 2010, I stepped foot on the campus of the University of Illinois. I figured I should recap a bit so future me will remember what happened.

Brit and I flew to Chicago, grabbed some Portillo's drive-thru and drove straight to Curtis Orchard.

I was looking forward to the orchard as much as anything. I bought apple donuts, apple fritters, apple pie, a caramel apple and some fudge. Unfortunately, my memories were better than the actual food this time around. The donuts, fritters and pie were all disappointing. The caramel apple and fudge were pretty good.

After that we went to the revamped Gameday on campus and Brit got a sweater. From there we walked down the quad, seeing the refurbished Alma Mater, sandblasted eternal flame, and restored Lincoln Hall. Turns out everything had been cleaned up since we were students.

After that we went with Missy and Mark to Dos Reales. The food wasn't as good as I remembered there either, but the margaritas were still great. Our night concluded at Brother's and Murphy's.

Saturday morning our group returned to campus, walked to Allen Hall and then back to Legends for lunch. The bacon cheeseburger here was better than I remembered. Kirat and I played frisbee on the Quad, Brit and I got frozen yogurt at Cocomero (where Moonstruck used to be) and then we walked to the stadium to see the Illini host Nebraska.

Illinois was losing 0-13 after three quarters, so of course, in classic Illinois Football tradition, they came back and won 14-13. The best game I ever saw in Memorial Stadium.

After the game, we had dinner at Jupiter's pizza where I had lots of meat on a pizza. It was good. Thus concludes, our weekend in Illinois.