early early early tomorrow like at the
crack of dawn I am flying to Chicago to
go see Hamilton. It is before the
crack of dawn on Saturday April 15th I
am awake I'm just going to go out and
check the tire pressure in my car and
then drive myself to the airport because
I am flying to Chicago to see Hamilton
tonight. I am so excited I can't even
explain to you how excited I am so I'm
going to go now, because I have to
catch my flight but I will talk to you
guys later
hi guys I am at the airport at like 5:00
a.m. and I have my little airport
breakfast taco I'm just waiting to get
on my flight to go to Chicago to see Hamilton.
[sarcastically] It's very exciting. I mean I am very excited
but it's very boring for you. Bye
Hi I made it to Chicago I found my friends. This is Nicole
she's responsible for getting us tickets
because she's amazing. This is my brother he's taking
pictures. [Ryan] are you making an Instagram story? Me: No I'm making a vlog.
A real vlog. Hi. So it'll never be
posted on my channel 'cause I never actually
post these things. We are here
obviously like hours and hours before
the actual show so we're just going to
explore Chicago probably starting with
Millennium Park because it is very close
to where the theater is, so, that is the
Plan. And food also lots of food bye
I'm just showing you guys the really
beautiful flowering trees they have in
Millennium Park right now. We're really close
to the clouds gate which everyone just calls
the bean and I'll show you that when we get
there but I really like these trees and
so I wanted to show you those and I
wanted to actually have footage because usually
what happens is unlike I'm going to vlog
and I do an intro and an outro and I
don't film anything in between and
that's why you never see vlogs on this
channel because I don't actually film
properly but yes, that's the plan
I'm just going to swing around so you can
see behind me that big shiny thing
is the bean. I'm extending my reach and we're going
to go take pictures by it but, I can't
do that with this so, yeah
[more of the story: we saw these perpetually running fountains and were like, that's some sketch looking water]
[but the water was actually nice and cool and "really legit" which is what I say here.]
hi this is the fountain in Millennium
Park I don't know probably is a real
name but I don't know what it is
last time I was here it was on and it is
not on and it is a really nice day out
it is sunny and bright but also like
there's wind coming off the lake and
that's really good and I think just for
me from being a now-San-Antonian
it needed to be warm enough that I
wouldn't freeze it's actually really
warm. Hi, so we came to find the Private
Bank Theatre in like the Sun/daylight
so we could take all our dorky Hamilton
pictures which I will put in here
somewhere they have all of these
lovely window decals things that
are the characters. Obviously the
Schulyer sisters and Burr and Washington(???)
and we did that thing where, there's
people in there technically but we
are standing out taking dorky
pictures and I'm pretty sure it happens
like literally all the time so
We're at the Chicago "Riverwalk"
which is a thing that I guess exists it
is not anything like the San Antonio
riverwalk, let me tell you. It closes
at night *pffft* what is that ?
but it does actually seem pretty cool
there's actually a lot of people here
kind of in the Sun it's a beautiful day
and you can see behind me,
the river and there's bridges...
this is a much more serious river than
the San Antonio river and they're like
boats that go by and it's basically,
it's really nice. Ooo, there's a giant
boat that's coming, can you see it?
[Nicole, off screen] I'd like to say the Milwaukee's river is wider than this
so Milwaukee might be a smaller city
but we have a wider Riverwalk
Hi guys! We are at Navy Pier and my
brother and friend wanted to give us
the short Divergent tour of Navy Pier.
[Ryan with silly voice] Hi, we're at Navy Pier, home to the scene where Tris and Four
climb up this Ferris Wheel behind us to see how... how brave they are.
and it turns out that Four is scared of
heights and then by going on it with Tris he realizes he has one more fear:
being scared of losing her
[laughter]
And if we turn around - turn around Caitlin -
[more laughter]
back there, you can see the John
Hancock building is like right over
there or something and that is where Tris, and the
rest of the Dauntless. They took, uhh... a little
thing like they zip-line down off the
top. It was very fun and exciting and she was like "woah, I'm glad to be Dauntless"
and if you guys have read the third book, these two haven't.
[Ryan] I'll cover my ears
You'll know that there's another pivotal scene that occurs there.
That might be related to some of the things we
discussed in regards to the ferris wheel
[Ryan] showing bravery over heights! - I'm
guessing has something to do with Four
overcoming fear of heights [Nicole off screen, laughing] Yup, that's what it is
absolutely. Yeah. [Ryan] I'm so good at deciding this yes
[Nicole] Actually what happens is that Four, in honor of Tris,
creates a new zip line, an even better
zip line it's got a loop in it and a
double helix [Ryan and Caitlin] What?!?
It's a pretty intense
[Nicole] that's all I'll tell you [Ryan] Why don't they have that here, I'd totally go
in there right now.
Aspects of the
Divergent tour of Chicago we did not show you
we went over and saw the headquarters for
Candor. I can put a picture in of that. And then, we
also passed by the church where they
filmed inside of the choosing ceremony so yeah
but it, you know, doesn't look quite the same from the outside so
[Nicole] Well I don't remember it saying the church
of, 17th Church of Christ on the outside in the movie
[Ryan] Yeah, no, they took elevators to it in the movie so,
it was on the ground
So, I think this
ends our Divergent tour of Chicago but
there you guys go
Well we can also, you started at O'Hare
did you even say anything about O'Hare
I didn't start at O'Hare I started at Midway
We were just debating how far away O'Hare really is.
It was great fun because this is a
BookTube channel we have now given you guys
the full book tour of Chicago [Ryan, sarcastic] There are no other books
that are based here
[Caitlin] No, none [Ryan] Definitely not Devil in the White City
Yeah, actually if you guys have ever been to Chicago
and you wonder more about kind of the Millennium
Park area. Devil in the White City is a really good
non-fiction book. Half of it is about the Chicago Columbian
Exhibition (i.e. the Chicago World's Fair) and the
other half talks about America's first
serial killer. Which is kind of weird. Anyway it's an
odd book but I liked at least half of
it and people generally tend to like at
least half of it so definitely go ahead and
read it. Alright, bye guys we'll see you
later.
We are outside the Chicago Tribune and
we've been debating whether or not these
stones in the wall are actually from
where they say they are like I don't
feel like Texas would give up such
a large piece of stone from the Alamo to
Chicago and then above, I don't know
if you can see it but there's a piece
that's like allegedly from the Taj Mahal
and a piece that's allegedly from Hamlet's
castle which I don't know if there's
like a folk-castle that's supposed to
be Hamlet's but Hamlet is not a real
person
[Nicole is trying to contribute smart things the camera didn't pick up] Anyway, this is The Chicago
Tribune. We stopped and got some like Tea
stuff and I thought I was getting bubble
tea but it actually has like jellies
instead of tapioca but I really just need
caffeine because I've been awake since
4:00 a.m.
okay so we pre-ordered our Pizza and
waited [to sit] and it still took like another
20 minutes so we literally just were
like hey can we get a box and also
our check with the pizza and we
like scarfed it and then like bolted and
so we came, we had to stop and get my real
like non-sunglass glasses so we came
back to do that and now we're heading to
the theater we have about twenty minutes,
thirty minutes, before it starts
hopefully we'll have enough time to buy
merch maybe. We will definitely have
time to get there before it starts so
this is the Hamilton adventure I don't expect
to be able to actually film anything
at the theater so this might be my last
update until you see me bawling my face
off after act 2
Hi, we are at the theater. We are up in the
balcony but it's not that bad at all I
don't know if you can see that but we
just want to show you like one of my
goals was to buy some official merch
since I bought some unofficial merch before
like I want to support the official
merch too so we got the same thing but
yeah I mean I guess do you want to show it
off since I'm holding the camera.
[Nicole] Sure, so we got this lovely lapel pin [Caitlin] that's going
on my backpack immediately [Nicole] I will remove
it so that you can see the actual pin
and not just the bag shining back at you
true look it's a beautiful tiny Hamilton
logo and then we also got these nice
little buttons that have different
scenes
from the play [Caitlin] it's like all the ad scenes
right they're all the ad scenes but
basically we wanted something that was
representative of the play and not a $40
t-shirt also I like shiny things
[Caitlin] I also like shiny things [Nicole] This is shiny so, I appreciate that
And it's a nice way to put
something on something I carry everyday
which is my backpack well every week,
workday and be like yo I saw Hamilton
just our little merch story so I'm going
to really for real shut off now until the
end of the show
hi I'm Caitlin and this
is book chats and I'm just filming a
little addendum to my Hamilton vlog that
you have just watched so I was literally
putting the footage together today from
the vlog that I did when I went to see
Hamilton on April 15th I realized that I
never actually told you guys what I
thought of it and all of my feelings
around it and I thought I would do that
now so Hamilton the musical you guys
probably have already heard about this
especially if you watch my channel you
probably know that I've been basically
obsessed with it since before I even
heard the soundtrack one of the people
that I follow online (@akangaru) has been obsessed with
it since she first heard about it
because she loves Alexander Hamilton and
she went to see it off Broadway and on
Broadway and she, like her love for it
was infectious and I was excited for it
I love it, I loved the music
many many things about it so about seven
months ago it was the second release of
tickets for the Chicago show so
initially like I
never expected to go see it in New York but
when they announced they were doing a
Chicago show I was like maybe Chicago I
could do. Chicago seems more achievable
Chicago is a city I have relatives. It's a city I've been
to more often than New York and I just
like it better than New York City so I
always kind of in the back my mind had thought
I might go to the show in Chicago but
when the first round of tickets opened I
was like totally unprepared and didn't
get any and so the day before the second
round was being released my friend
posted on Facebook that she was thinking
about going and would anyone be
interested in going with her and I said
absolutely
please get me tickets as well and so I
had her get two tickets one for me and I
got one for my brother. My younger sister
was really upset I didn't get one for
her but I didn't realize that she
would be able to go because she's a
student. My brother I just automatically knew
that he would have the funds and the
availability to go. My friends... I talked to a
couple of my friends who I know had seen
it or heard already bought tickets
because I knew that I was going to have
to set a budget and so I talked to them
to figure out what my, what budget was
reasonable for me to spend but also to
be able to get tickets and I settled on
about $100 so I ended up spending about
a hundred dollars on each ticket. It's how
much my tickets cost. My friend is the
one who bought them she used the online
system and it took her about half a day
to get it to work while she was doing
other things and other work obviously I
have also heard that people had a lot of
success calling on the phone on the day
using their phone on the day that they
release but you pretty much have to
buy the tickets the day they release and
when we bought tickets the earliest
available ones were for Saturday, April
15th of course on a weekend, that was my
stipulation to has to be a weekend
because I would be traveling and so the
earliest available date was Saturday
April 15th those are what we got
months later we realized that that was
Holy Saturday or the Saturday before
Easter and so I actually ended up
spending the rest of the weekend with
some of my relatives in southern
Wisconsin which was really wonderful and
a good opportunity and I got to see my
parents who drove down so I could see
them too and that was really nice and
it's always great to be reminded of how
great my extended family is because they
are really a blessing to me anyway so
all of that being said, Hamilton in
itself was amazing.
We sat in the upper, upper balcony but it was totally
worth it you could still see a lot of
the staging you just couldn't see faces
but it's really hard in stage shows to
be able to see faces anyway that's more
like of a movie thing. We had only a
couple of understudies that day one of
them was Angelica, but our Angelica was
amazing
Hercules Mulligan were our two under
studies I believe and they were both
great I thought, probably my
favorite performances were King George.
I think our King George is better than
like the original cast Jonathan Groff
King George like he just so supercilious
and it was a wonderful and he was
so snarky and he just it was so great to
see him in that role and he was like not
as young as Jonathan Groff is, and I think
that really suited the role better and
he was just his facial expressions and
oh I want him I want his voice I want
all of his versions of the King George
songs because he just added so much
character to them and just oh he was
fabulous
I also loved Jefferson if you guys
haven't seen the show you might not know
if you're like me and are a ditz and
didn't notice that it was sort of the
same voice in the soundtrack or you
might have looked it up and figured out
that Lafayette and Thomas are a
double cast role. There are several
roles that are double cast in the show
and that is one of them and he was okay
as Lafayette but not like amazing but
as soon as he came back on stage as
Thomas Jefferson oh man
Jefferson was SO snarky and so just like
the details so like when he comes on
stage, the background cast
for most of the show like they'd just
been barehanded and they... the use of
clothing in the show was fascinating so
like the background cast is
generally just in these period
undergarments but then they'll put on
clothing to be various other roles.
Put on overcoats and even
with Hamilton they'll put on different coats
on him in different phases of his life.
In different roles in his kind of
professional career and so it's really
cool to watch kind of the way they use
details like that you can't get it off
of just the music but when Jefferson
first appears on stage for the very
first time all of the background
characters are wearing white gloves
and it's like everyone around him, oh they
have to be that level of fancy because
this is Jefferson and he's been in
France and it was just the delightful.
he did the role so well and put so much
energy and like character into this
character also many many many people had
told me the staging was amazing the only
example I had heard of that was
satisfied and helpless where satisfied
is the same staging as helpless but like
they rewind and then take you back
through it and show you Angelica's
point of view but the first act in
general has pretty standard staging it's
not that exciting but the second act has
amazing staging. They have a double turntable
and they use it to such good effect.
I think my favorite was possibly in
hurricane where there's this moment
Alexander Hamilton is standing and
singing about the eye of a hurricane and
around him, he's standing still, and around
him on the turntable are little people
who represent different events in his
life and they're frozen but they're
moving because it'd a turntable. I don't know it's so
hard to explain but it's wonderful and I
absolutely think that it was totally
worth the wait the seven-month wait
after I got my tickets and then wait
before then as well and also the fact
that I think it was worth the $100 I spent
on the ticket and I also of course spent
another couple of hundred dollars on the
airplane to get up there and then I stayed
with relatives for one of the nights
I was up there and I'm only up there for
two nights and the second night I just
stayed in a really cheap AirBnB place, so
I didn't spend a ton on lodging but I
just really enjoyed the whole experience
is wonderful it was really great to see
it with my friend who, together we
are obsessed but Hamilton and like the
whole week leading up it's interesting
because I was so obsessed initially with
the soundtrack but I listened to it like
every day and it's more than two
hours so that's like a commitment. But
in the a couple months leading up to
watching the show I actually hadn't been
listening to it a lot so I pulled it
back up again I listened to it a couple
of times but I didn't listen to it like
everyday. My friend kind of did
but we would just send each other
text messages that were like lines from
the show to encourage and excite each
other. In general the whole
experience was really great I'm really
glad I got to see it I thought the Chicago
cast was amazing. I'm sure the traveling
cast will be amazing as well if you also
really love Hamilton I would say sit
down determine what value it is to you
set your budget and see if
you can get tickets for it within that
budget to see near you or in Chicago or
in New York but basically the thing is I
have been watching some of my friends go
to see it and I had like a little bit of
jealousy that my friends are going to
see the show and I was like Caitlin,
you can fix this like nobody is telling
you you can't go see it yourself and so
when my friend offered like hey who
wants to go see this with me I was like I do I
want to go see it with you so I think like
if I can convey anything to you guys
like if you really want something and
you have the means to go do it don't
wait until someone gives you permission
or wait until someone gifts it to you
just make it happen for yourself
that's my Hamilton story I hope you
enjoyed the vlog of my day in Chicago
and that it wasn't totally boring
and thank you so much for watching bye
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