🍴 When in (Insert City Name Here)... 5/18/25

Hi Everyone!

If I had a nickel for every time I have been on a playground this week, I would have three nickels. This isn’t that much, but it’s kind of interesting that the opportunity arose that many times.

At the end of the day, sometimes I just want to swing on a swing set or slide down a slide. Sure, there is a social stigma, but I think it can help keep the kid inside of us, still full of joy and wonder about the world, alive. My mission, should you choose to accept, is to go down a slide this week.

With that out of the way, let’s find out What’s Up With Will…

Monday was the day Rylee graduated from her master’s program! 

We woke up early Monday Morning and drove from Mystic to UConn. When we arrived, Rylee ran off to get ready for her ceremony, leaving me to wrangle the troops. Between the two of us, this wasn’t our first graduation rodeo, as we’ve celebrated each other before. We’ve got a long-running joke that on graduation days, it is our circus and definitely our monkeys.

I managed to get everyone in their seats and started my directorial debut, by directing cameras and coordinating angles. Then the moment came. Rylee walked across that stage, and everything went off without a hitch. When Rylee walked, we were all screaming! I am so proud of her. She put in so much hard work, and now it is all paying off.

Afterwards, we drove back to Mystic (but first I needed one more stop at the UConn Dairy Bar), and went to a celebratory lunch at S&P Oyster Restaurant and Bar. Since we were in New England, I figured it would only be proper to have some New England Clam Chowder. As the saying goes, “When in Mystic…”

To wrap up the day, we walked around Mystic checking out shops, and then my dad and I broke off from the group to go to the Mystic Seaport Museum. I was expecting this museum to just be about ships, and while there were ships (and more importantly, I was able to get on a ship and take a picture), I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the museum replicated a small shipping port town in the 1700s/1800s. There was a whole town, and inside each building, we learned about a different trade that supported the industry, such as a rope maker, a barrel maker, navigational equipment, and a printing press. Fun Fact: Did you know the word stereotype comes from a print shop?

Tuesday Morning, we got up and drove to the Boston Airport. However, this is not where our adventure ends. While some of us were flying out, my mom, granny, Rylee, and I stayed in Boston for one extra day to sightsee. 

One of our friends, Avery, gave me a list of places to try in Boston, so with that information in tow, I immediately made a beeline for Bova’s Bakery. 

One of the foods that Boston is known for is the Cannoli, and Bova’s Bakery has been cooking them up for over 80 years now. As the saying goes, “When in Boston…”, so I tried their Florentine Cannoli, which was made with a super thin, crispy shell. The Cannoli itself was heavenly, to the extent that it might have ruined all other cannolis for me. 

We also stopped at a place called Luke’s Lobster to try a lobster roll, and it did not disappoint as well. The combination of the buttery lobster with the steaming bun is unbeatable.

Along the way, we also visited some tourist spots.

We all went to the Paul Revere House, which, as you might have guessed, was home to Paul Revere. It is considered to be the oldest building in Boston, and gave us insight into how people lived back then. 

We also went to the Boston Tea Party Museum, exploring the events of the Boston Tea Party. What I loved about this place was how immersive it was. We watched a pretend Sons of Liberty meeting taking place moments before the tea party, where we were told to play along by cheering and booing. They also taught us what the worst thing to say to someone back in the day was, “Fie!”. And then we were taken aboard a ship, and we threw out the boxes of tea. Over the course of that night, 90,000 lbs of tea were destroyed, with an estimated value of over 1.5 million dollars by today’s standards.

Some of my fraternity brothers have started a yearly trip to spend time together. This year’s trip was to Chicago, and so we figured that since we were already on the East Coast, it would make more sense to extend the trip a little bit longer. 

We flew in on Wednesday Morning and met up with everyone at an Ecuadorian Restaurant. Unfortunately for me, our server only spoke Spanish. For some backstory, I took 4 years of Spanish in high school. You want to guess how much I still remember? Almost nothing. I was very grateful for Rylee to help me order. That being said, one thing came back to me, so I asked the waitress, “¿Tienes cerveza?” What can I say, I remember the important things.

Afterwards, we explored the neighborhood of Logan Square, which is a cute residential area of Chicago. We checked out some of the parks and stopped for some Italian Ice at Miko’s Italian Ice.

Then we took ourselves out to the ballgame at Wrigley Field, where the Chicago Cubs played against the Miami Marlins. While the Marlins ended up winning 3-1, I was able to try the famous Garrett’s popcorn mix and a Chicago dog, because as the saying goes, “When in Chicago…”. Unfortunately, I made the cardinal sin of putting ketchup on my Chicago dog.

On Thursday, we explored more of the Chicago Neighborhoods.

Our first stop was Wicker Park, one of the trendier neighborhoods. We stopped for Crepes for breakfast at Brü, walked around a three-story bookstore called Myopic Books, and checked out the actual Wicker Park.

Then we took a train to Chicago’s Chinatown to shop and have some insanely good Chinese food at a place called MCCB. The food was so good, but we ordered way too much and were way too full after that.

We also made a stop at a bar later that night, back in Logan Square, called Common Decency, where they had crazy cocktails like a Key Lime Pie Milk Punch.

The next day, we explored the Streeterville neighborhood, home to Navy Pier, a popular tourist and entertainment center with a Ferris Wheel on top of it. While there, I tried an Italian Beef Sandwich at Ciccio’s. The way I would describe the sandwich was like a spicy French Dip with the Au Jus poured over it. Incredible!

Later that day, we took an architecture Cruise. However, the moment that we boarded, we all received an emergency weather notification about an impending Dust Storm. We could see the dust storm come in, and at the height of the storm, it was quite eerie. The city looked straight out of a Batman comic. However, the storm did eventually die down, and we got to see all of the incredible architecture of Chicago, including the Willis Tower. We also went under Kinzie Street, which is where the infamous Dave Matthews Incident occurred back in 2004 (I am not going to go into details, but you can learn more about it here). Our tour guide told us the story and mentioned at the end that while we had to deal with a dust storm, there had been a far cr*ppier architecture cruise.

On Saturday, we decided to do a Pizza Pilgrimage through the city to find the best Chicago-style deep-dish. We ate deep-dish from 5 different places all to determine what was the best Chicago Style Pizza. The 5 places are as follows: Chicago’s Pizza, Pequod’s Pizza, Lou Malnatti’s Pizzeria, Giordano’s, and Art of Pizza. Out of all of those, I would say that Pequod’s Pizza or Lou Malnatti’s was the best, however, I do have some pause about Pequod’s as that pizza bordered on being Detroit Style.

During this pizza crawl, I was able to try the Chicago Handshake. For those of you that don’t know, A Chicago Handshake is a shot of the local Jeppson's Malört (a Swedish Spirit that was introduced to Chicago in the 1930’s) followed by a can of Old Style beer. I have heard online that Malört doesn’t have the best reputation online, with some reviews commenting on its “Sharp, bitter grapefruit with a paint thinner finish” or that it tastes like “pepper, then basement”.

I did manage to get Jacob and Peter to join me for a handshake, which is probably the truest indicator of real friends. The experience itself wasn’t bad though, and I would happily have a Chicago Handshake again.

We made a quick stop at Millennium Park to take pictures in front of The Bean (If you are a stickler for names, it’s official one is Cloud Gate, but come on, its The Bean).

To wrap up the day, we went to the Improv Theater, Second City, to watch an improvised Murder Mystery Show set in the first Chuck-E-Cheese in Budapest. I thought it was hilarious. Tyler did improv back in college, so I asked him what he thought about it. He said that compared to his improv experience, it was less situationally funny, and the actors would more often than not go for the joke as they have to entertain a wide audience with different backgrounds. It was interesting to hear from that perspective.

Then on Sunday, we went to the Logan Square Farmers Market (which was probably one of the most crowded farmers markets I have ever been to), and I had an excellent Ube Matcha Latte. Unfortunately, we had to wave goodbye to all of our friends as we went our merry ways. It was so great to see everyone, and I can’t wait for the next time.

Over the course of the week, I have been on three ships, so it feels apt to end this newsletter on this. Back in college, our fraternity had a chant, and it went something like this, “There are Good Ships. There are Wood Ships. There are Ships that sail the sea, but the Best Ships are the Friendships like the ones between you and me.” 

Here’s to the best ships of all.

I don’t if you have also been obsessed with the show Severance, but when whenever I see Ben Stiller as a director, I get a jump-scare. I think this is interesting to see the he has always dabbled as a director, in addition to being one of the biggest names in Comedy Movies.