24 hours in Chicago--a journey to NKOTBSB

It seems sometimes that a lot can happen in 24 hours, but never have I had such a whirlwind 24 as I did on my journey to see NKOTBSB on June 17th at the United Center in Chicago. The trip officially started at 9:30am on Friday when an old friend that I haven't seen in about 15 years came to pick me up. I had been nervous for the whole week before this adventure for many reasons, and one of the biggest ones was that I would be going on an overnight trip with three ladies that I haven't seen or more than facebooked with in more than a decade!! My fear quickly disappeared when Christine opened the car door and we said hello. Conversation just kept on going from there as if no time had passed! We drove to Jessica's parents' house, loaded our stuff into her mom's car and headed for the Niles train station. We arrived at the station almost an hour early and Jessica gave Christine and I our tickets while we waited for Nickala. When I got ready to sign my ticket, I noticed that it said "ID required." At that moment I began to panic. I searched through my entire purse, knowing that I had left my ID at home on the kitchen table. I saw my dream of seeing NKOTB again after twenty years quickly slipping away. Not only was I very upset, I was extremely embarrassed. How could I have packed for a weekend away from home and not brought a photo ID???? Jessica said she had never been asked to show her ID on a trip before, but I knew that if I didn't have mine, that would be the one time they decided to check them. I tried calling my mom, but got no answer. I had several other contacts in my phone, but none that would be able to go get my drivers license. Christine called her husband, but he was thirty minutes away from my house, and an additional twenty minutes from the train station. He was willing to try to make the trip, but didn't know if he would make it in time. Jessica called her parents' house. Her husband was unable to do it because he was unfamiliar with the area. Her mom still was not home, so she asked her dad to go pick it up. Thankfully he said he would do it! I gave him directions and he said he would try. Meanwhile, Nickala arrived with her mom. They were very concerned at the thought of me not being able to go on the trip. Thoughtfully, Christine offered to stay behind with me and wait for the later train if my ID didn't arrive in time! My mom got my messages and called me back, ten minutes before the train was scheduled to leave. She wanted to help, but there wasn't enough time. While she and I were talking, Jessica's dad came with the license. Whew!!! Of course, Murphy's Law---rushed around for my ID and the train was delayed for almost an hour. All that tension for nothing!!! The train was packed when we finally boarded. We tried finding seats together, but ended up in the same car, sitting in pairs instead. When we were about a half hour from Chicago, the train came to a halt. There were freight cars on the tracks, blocking our passage. Good thing we were right next to the snack car!! Three of us went into the snack car to get various food and drinks. As soon as we walked in, I was stopped by a table full of women who asked me if I was headed to the New Kids concert. They noticed my old school 90s NKOTB concert t-shirt. I told them we were going, and they said that they were going too. A table of three drunk guys sitting across from them heard the conversation and started talking to me, saying how AWESOME it was that I was going to the concert, how I was going to have an AWESOME time, and then that I have a sexy voice and should work the phones. Nice. I was slightly amused by them because normally the only time I am ever hit on by drunk guys they are at least in their late 40s at some dive bar. They asked my name, but for some reason only kept calling me Sarah, and for the rest of the trip, every time one of them walked past my seat to go to the scary train bathroom, they gave me a high five or fist bump and told me once again to have an AWESOME time. Too funny. When we exited the train station and headed onto the streets to look for a cab, the three drunk guys were STILL THERE, high five-ing and talking to me, until they finally got a taxi and disappeared. We were trying to get a taxi and a guy came up to us asking "You guys looking for a cab??" We thought he was a cab driver, so we followed him to the street corner, only to watch him start crossing the street, and eventually being chased away by cops. Apparently he was a scammer, just trying to take our money. The actual cab experience was not much better. As we were getting into the taxi, a car drove by, flipping off our driver, shouting obscenities and telling him to learn to drive. We should have known that it would not be a good ride..Poor Nickala had to ride in the front seat, and somehow ended up in the front seat on every other cab ride for the rest of the trip. The driver did NOT want to engage in conversation with us, and I think he was pissed that he had to move his huge bag of crap off his passenger seat for someone to get in there. He didn't even offer to open his trunk for us to store all of our bags, so we had to hold them on our laps. Nickala felt something underfoot, leaned down, and picked up a bottle of water. She thought maybe it had been left in the cab by a previous passenger, so she looked at the driver and said "Is this yours?" He sternly replied "Everything in this cab is mine!" Ok, end of discussion! The whole trip to the hotel was filled with other drivers honking, flipping him off, and shouting. It was nice to finally arrive at the hotel!!! Jessica got us a room at the Hard Rock Hotel. It was an amazing place. Our room was on the 13th floor--not a good sign to superstitious me, but I thought I could deal with it. It wasn't until we walked to the elevators to go up that I realized this would be a problem. I have a huge phobia of elevators. I saw a large staircase across from the elevators and decided to take those, but was told by a hotel employee that the staircase only went up three or four floors. Nickala bravely agreed to take the stairs with me, so we followed the staff member to a hidden staircase that I would never be able to find again if I were to stay at that hotel in the future. Thirteen floors doesn't seem like too many until you are walking up that many flights of stairs. I think it was on floor six when I felt like I wanted to lay down and die right there rather than walk any further. I opened a door to the sixth floor and was going to just suck it up and take the elevator because I didn't think I would survive seven more flights of stairs, but Nickala kept convincing me that the only way I could get to an elevator was to go back down to the lobby. Don't know why she thought that, but I didn't argue and kept walking upstairs. There was NO way I wanted to walk back DOWN six flights just to go up thirteen!!!! We finally made it to our room, definitely winded, and looked around. Pictures of different bands and quotes on the walls, very modern, certainly more exciting than the usual Red Roof Inn that my family stays in on vacations! Jessica called her friend who had my concert ticket. They were staying a floor or two directly above our room. This friend of Jessica's had two single tickets in two different places and wanted to make sure she kept the best seat for herself, so she was considering not giving me a ticket until we got to the concert. I had a feeling that if we waited that long we would never find her at the United Center and I wouldn't get my ticket, so I had Jessica convince her to give me the ticket right then. Jessica and Christine went up to the other girl's room and I stayed in our room. I didn't want to take the elevators anymore than absolutely necessary!! We decided to go out for pizza for dinner and found a great pizza place about a block away from our hotel--Giordano's. SO yummy. We had classic Chicago deep dish pizza. If only my stomach had been bigger so I could have eaten more of it! We had no refrigerator in our room so we couldn't take our leftovers. After dinner, we walked back to our hotel, took the elevator upstairs (which I felt a bit more at ease about after seeing the large electronic elevator tracker in the lobby--lights showed where each car was located at all times and if there were any maintenance issues), and finished getting ready for the show. We got a much better cab driver to the United Center, who still wasn't very chatty, and excitedly looked around the city on our way to see NKOTBSB. Jessica, Christine and I all had seats in the same Gate entrance, so we walked Nickala around the outside of the building and dropped her off at her entrance. Jessica got Nickala's seat at a later time than her first two tickets, so she would be sitting in a single seat somewhere else in the arena. We made plans to meet Nickala outside her gate after the show and told her that we would try to find her once we got inside. It was much easier to find her than we expected. All three of us could see her in her seat the entire show. Jessica and Christine had seats on the floor along the "shaft" of what was affectionately nicknamed "The Penis Stage" for the show. I don't remember how many rows back their seats were, but they were pretty amazing! I guess their only complaint was that they could not see the guys on the main stage very well because of how everything was angled. My seat was in section 13 (that same lucky number again!) row C, seat 14. It was a much better seat than I had at my first NKOTB concert in the early 90s, but I would have loved to have been just a tiny bit closer...Basically, I was the "ejaculate" of "The Penis Stage". I was 14 seats away from the circular part of the stage that rose up and down at different moments of the concert. All of us were texting back and forth while we waited for the show to get started. Ashlyne Huff opened for the guys and she was ok. Very young, wearing what looked like some sort of leotard, and dancing around the stage with some backup dancing girls. After she left the stage, Jordin Sparks came on. She was pretty good. I wasn't sure what to expect of the young American Idol winner, but she is quite amazing live. I would've preferred to see Matt Morrison from Glee, but he didn't join the show until a few weeks later. When Jordin Sparks exited the stage, the lights came back so the stage could be prepared for the guys. I had to go pee SO bad and texted Christine that I was going to the bathroom. She warned me that I would miss the opening song from the guys, but I was pretty confident that I could go and make it back in time. I knew I couldn't wait until the concert was over or I would probably pee my pants. The line to the ladies room was long, as always, but I waited. It moved faster than I would have expected, probably because everyone wanted to get back in time to see the guys come out for the first time. The pre-show music was starting as I finished up in the bathroom and I ran all the way back to my seat--to make it back just in time for the lights and everything else, and for the guys to come out on stage. I made it!!! I don't know if I can describe quite how I felt when everyone came onto the stage. I couldn't see the guys very well on the main stage because of everyone standing up in front of me, but I could see their faces on the big screen tv. It was just like being twelve again. The magic of the moment, the excitement, the love, everything I had felt as a girl was exactly what I felt the second time around. Tears came to my eyes--just as tears are coming to my eyes as I finish typing this post, nearly three months later. Other than what I have just written, I really have no more words. When the guys walked down the stage and came to the end of it where I could clearly see them, I could make out almost every detail of each face. There was no question who was who, no need to watch the large screens to see what was happening--full, clear view, just thirteen other seats between me and the ability to wave and be seen clearly by each one of the guys on the stage. Too bad security guards keep people from leaving their seats and getting a closer look! All of the songs were amazing, and I actually developed a new love for the Backstreet Boys that night. I always liked their music ok, but after that incredible night, they were sharing some of the love that I have held for NKOTB all these years (mainly for Donnie Wahlberg--man is he hot!!! lol). I swear Brian Littrell pointed at me, waved and mouthed "I see you!" during the show, but then again, as a 12 year old, I swore that Donnie waved right at me too, so who knows if it was me he saw or one of the dozens of other girls sitting in what I call "BSB City". My seat was in a section filled with Backstreet Boys lovers. NKOTB guys jumped off the stage and went into the crowd during one song and I was turned around in my seat, watching Jonathan, hoping he would go behind my section and come up the other aisle, right next to me, but he didn't come my way. When I turned back around, I was surprised to see that Joe was maybe ten feet from me, standing on the wall of one of the other sections. What a surprise!!! I tried to get some pictures that didn't turn out too well, but I did get a clear shot of him when he walked back toward the stage, just two rows from me. Ahhhh! All too soon the show was over. Jessica, Christine and I exited the arena toward Nickala's gate and found her before she was even able to exit the building. We had been told by several people that the United Center is not in the best part of town so we should take a cab back to our hotel and avoid the buses that drove through some shady areas. Thousands of people poured out of the building and started walking the sidewalks away from the United Center. We asked a traffic guide where we should go for a taxi and he directed us down the street two or three blocks. We walked to where he had sent us and there were no cabs anywhere to be seen. We turned around, walked back toward the arena, and asked another traffic guide where to go for a taxi. He sent us to the same location. We walked back that way and still no cabs. After our third trip up and down the same section of sidewalk, with other passersby starting to dwindle, and numerous buses coming and going, we called a cab company. They told us they were sending cabs that way, so we waited. Nothing. After probably close to an hour, we started seeing a few cabs every ten minutes, but not nearly enough to handle the dozens of people waiting on every corner for about two blocks. Why on earth were there not lines of taxis waiting all around after the show? Don't these companies have event schedules? Don't they realize that people will be pouring out of these places and needing transportation? Apparently NOT. We waited and waited. A scammer showed up on our corner, asking people if they were looking for a taxi, tried to steal from Christine...it was time to get off that street corner! An employee of another nearby hotel was sitting on the corner where we were waiting and she told us that if we took any bus we could get back to where we wanted to go. At that point we were all way too tired to continue standing there, and I was getting nervous that we might end up there all night, so we took the next bus. It didn't go to our part of town specifically, but the driver told us she could drop us a few blocks away (in a better part of town) and we could get back from there. The bus was still pretty crowded with other concert-goers, so even though we were warned not to take the bus, I wasn't too concerned. Couldn't 20+ NKOTBSB fans take on any riff raff that might decide to board the bus? Our bus ride seemed very long. We weren't sure where we were, or where exactly our stop was going to be. The driver kept shouting at everyone to move back to let more people on, but the bus seemed to be at full capacity after the first pickup! Slowly, more and more people exited the bus, and our ability to outnumber any other boarders on the bus started to disappear. Finally at some stop that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, three other fans got off the bus and we also decided to exit. One of the ladies that had gotten out there had a street map and she showed us that we could walk up a street or two, then down a few blocks and get to our hotel. We started to walk and as soon as we turned the first corner, we saw a cab. Never have any people been so excited to see a taxi in their lives I am sure! This driver was more pleasant than any of the others we had, and he made some easy money on our trip, taking us maybe four blocks, but getting a huge tip. Back to our hotel at last!!! I think it was nearly 1 a.m. by then. We were all really wound up, and very thirsty. Christine and I walked down the block to 7-11 to get drinks for everyone since our posh hotel did not contain a single pop machine. What is with that?? The 7-11 trip was so much fun. There were two on-duty police officers in the store, and when they saw my concert t-shirt they asked if we had been to the show. We told them that we had just gotten back and how hard it was to find a taxi. We weren't the only ones who had trouble getting back from there that night. The cops said they had talked to some people who walked the whole way back. How they knew how to get back from there is beyond me! Especially if they walked back to our part of town. We were a good 20-30 minute cab ride from the United Center. Good thing we didn't have to walk that whole way. That would have been more terror than I could have handled. The two officers were also interested in hearing how the show was, who were better performers, NKOTB or BSB, and just generally very friendly. It was nice getting to talk to them about our evening. Christine and I took the drinks back to our room and we had them with the Hershey bars that Christine had packed. What a tasty late-night snack! Somehow, Christine, Nickala and I got into a conversation about breast size and in the middle of that, Christine interrupted to comment about a bump on her head that she got on the train. Nickala started laughing because she thought Christine was going to say that the bump on her head was bigger than someone's boobs and we all started cracking up laughing. Sometime during the wee hours of the morning (or evening, however you look at it) we went to sleep. We planned to sleep in, but everyone woke up very early the next morning. I heard Jessica and Nickala talking to each other quietly and thought Christine was still asleep, so I closed my eyes and tried to go back to bed, but it turned out Christine was awake too, so I decided to get up. We got ready, and went to breakfast at a restaurant just a few feet from our hotel. It looked pretty upscale for just being a breakfast location, and the prices definitely reflected that. The food I did have was quite tasty, but spendy. After breakfast we did some shopping. There was a discount purse store just a few doors down from our hotel and it was fantastic. I purchased my first Vera Bradley purse that day. I didn't really have plans to buy anything, but Jessica convinced me that it was such a good deal, and if I had always wanted a Vera purse, this should be the time to buy one. So glad that I did. I still love my purse, and guard it almost like one of my children!! Before long, it was time to take a cab to the train station. Nothing too eventful happened on our drive there, nor did anything happen while we waited in line to board the train. We were able to sit two and two in rows that were next to each other on the drive home, so we could talk more than on the way to Chicago the day before. Christine wanted to take a picture of the conductor, and I told her that she could pretend to take a picture of me, and get him instead so he wouldn't know. I think she took a picture, but it didn't turn out too well. We got to the train station and back into Jessica's mom's car to go home. Hard to believe that just 26-28 hours later, we were back to where the adventure had begun. Christine's husband Michael met us at Jessica's parents, and we hopped into their car to drive back to my house. It was almost surreal getting out of their car and walking up my front steps. So hard to believe that the indescribable weekend was already over. I can't wait to see NKOTB again. I even joined twitter and started following the guys, trying to watch for news of an after party in Indy so I could drop everything and drive three hours to get in and meet the guys. No after party ever came. Sad. :( Oh well. There will be another time for me, for all of us who went on this incredible journey. I just hope it will be sooner rather than later. Thanks girls, and thanks NKOTBSB for bringing back dreams and feelings for all these now grown fans who were able to feel like kids again for a few hours that night.