When I first got back to Chicago for the summer, I was frantically busy, putting off visiting with friends and family as I prepared to sit for the LSATs. It wasn’t until after I had left the LSAT testing facility the next week, clear plastic bag full of pencils in hand, that I finally had time to breathe a sigh of relief, check my voicemail, and start to enjoy my time in Chicago.
The very next evening, I found myself sitting in the Davis theater with my friend Matt, and I finally felt truly home. Matt had driven down from Sauganash, parked on my street, and taken the 15-minute walk to Lincoln Square with me, as we’d done so often in high school. Matt and I, like so many others before us, had fallen prey to the quaint charm of the Davis, whose unbeatable matinee prices and Lincoln Square location were absolutely irresistible to a pair of high school kids looking for an adventure. This particular movie wasn’t especially good, but it barely mattered to us—we were happy to be in good company, at the theater that had become so familiar and so beloved.
After the interminable movie had finally finished, we left the theater, and decided on a whim to get gelato at Paciugo (my tiramisu-cinnamon-chocolate crunch combo was delicious). We spent the walk home trying to pool our considerable stores of movie knowledge so that we could determine what the director could have done to save the unfortunate film we’d just seen, and we finished the stroll back home laughing and trying to lick the last bits of gelato from our spoons. Matt got in the car and drove back to Sauganash, but I got to stay in the neighborhood, delighted and relieved to be back where I belong.
– Annie M.
Forward Chicago 
