Bloggin the Windy City

Wazzup ma homeys?!

Can you tell I'm watching Scrubs? No? Pretend JD just said that first line to Turk. Heheheh.

Anyway, I'm feeling slightly ill and slightly moody and I guess it's not the best way to write my first blog on the Windy City but I'm already soooo behind I have to get a move on.

Our flight from Heathrow was 8 hours long but because of the time difference we arrived only a few hours later. :P So it felt like one in the morning (of the 21st) for us but in Chicago was still only about 7pm on the 20th. When we got off the plane, we went through customs and they were very polite and professional and didn't give us any hassles except to make a few remarks about the hot pink ink we'd used to fill in our landing cards. (It was the only pen I had on hand.) But then we found out that BA had left one of our bags in London and it turned out to actually be the box that Sameer's Xbox was in, so there was some stress and drama that we didn't need.


We caught a taxi to the Best Western River Park North, checked in and took hot showers - bliss after the flight. It was also really cool having a TV in our room post-Wolfson. There was so much nonsense on the three channels we had access to and the one thing that really stood out was how much endorsements movie stars here do. Everything from Tylenol to Car Insurance was endorsed by some Hollywood person. And also, the news was all about the impending snow showers and whether the city had enough salt for all the roads and highways. When we woke up in the morning it was snowing, and not just light Davos snowing but seriously snowing.

We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant (the fluffiest pancakes I've ever had) gathered all our baggage and caught another taxi to Presidential Towers, where we'd rented an apartment for the duration of Sameer's term at the Chicago GSB. Erin, the leasing agent, gave us our access cards and keys and then took us through the building to show us all the amenities. Here are some pictures of Sameer standing outside the entrance to Towers 1 and 2, Sameer in the main foyer area, me outside the McDs downstairs, and then Sameer outside the supermarket which is also downstairs.






She also showed us where the laundry room, business center (ie computer room) and gym are. Alas, you actually have to pay for the gym membership but they have everything - pool, sauna, track, all cardio and weights machines, and studio sessions. We're still trying to decide whether to join or not as it's quite expensive.

Anyway, then we went to the room/apartment (ie studio) and looked around. We're in apartment 6 on our floor (there are 45 floors in the building) so our floorplan looks like this. It's small but bigger than our room at Wolfson, and it has comes with kitchen and tv, so it's definitely a step up!


Then we went back down to get our bags. Here's Sameer pushing the trolley thingey around with all our stuff on it.


And then the people from Cort Furniture Rentals came with all our stuff. Here's a pic of Sameer wandering around while they set the bed and the table up.

One of the guys had been in the US army for six years and he was telling us where the best place to get a tv stand was (we hadn't hired one) and where the closest grocery store was. Very friendly guy. Funniest thing about him was that his accent was exactly like Bill Paxton's in the movie Aliens. He sounded just like Hudson! I didn't realize people actually spoke like that. :P

After they left we unpacked the boxes they'd left with all the kitchen stuff and bedding in it. This company is so awesome and I think if anyone is ever relocating to the States they need to get this service. You order online and they deliver a set of boxes to you and it has everything you need in it -- different sized glasses, bowls, cups, saucers, plates, sideplates, pots, pans, knives, sieves, cutlery, baking implements, cooking implements, placemats, napkins, plastic food savers, dish clothes, toaster, coffee machine, telephone etc etc. There was only one thing they didn't get us and we found out that this is just an American thing. We have a coffee machine but no kettle. So if we ever want hot water, we have to boil it on the stove. Go figure. Anyway, point is, about an hour later we were all set up, and the place looked like this.




Then Sameer had to go register at the university so we took a taxi to the Metra station because it was snowing and we weren't exactly sure where the station was. Afterwards we realized that it is so close - just a few blocks - that we might as well have walked. The picture on the left was taken from inside the taxi as we drove down our street, Madison Street, which is right in downtown Chicago and slap bang in the center of everything. We are right near the offices for Citibank, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, JP Morgan, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The Chicago Civic Opera House is two blocks up the road and we're just one street over from the Chicago Theatre District. We walked down that street the other day and there are like three theatres within two blocks.

Also, another thing I noticed right away is that there is a Starbucks on every street corner. Okay, maybe not every street corner but I am not exaggerating when I saw that no matter which way you look, there is always a Starbucks in line of sight. Hectic! One of the taxi drivers we were speaking - a really sweet old Iranian guy - told us that it's because Chicago is such a cold city. The harder it snows, the more people make for the coffee shops.

Point? Oh yes, Hyde Park, where the University is. It was very quiet, I guess because it was Good Friday (we later saw a number of families coming out of churches) and because it was snowing steadily. We went to the Office of International Affairs and Sameer signed up and updated his contact details, then we went to the Graduate School of Business to look around. Here's a pic of their main foyer.


Then we headed back to the train station. It was snowing really hard by this time and the snow was stinging our faces, so we had to keep our faces down as we walked. We were both covered in snow and our feet were freezing too.

The train station at Hyde Park is really basic. Just a wooden staircase up to the platform, which is also made entirely of wood. It has no kiosks or benches or anything, just the wooden platform that the train pulls up to. Also, there is no-one at the ticket office so you have to buy your tickets from a vending machine. We were looking at the stairs and I saw what I thought might be either snow or salt. I asked Sameer to test it but he didn't want to, so I picked up a piece and tasted it. Yep, definitely salt! The salt helps melt the snow off stairs, sidewalks and roads.



So we caught the train back to Millenium Station, the Metra station we'd originally left from, and then caught another taxi to Target, which is sort of like Hypermarket. We got some groceries and detergents there and also a shower curtain for the bathroom. Here's a nifty pic of this escalator they have for shopping carts. You push your trolley onto a special track and then get onto the escalator yourself, and it meets you at the top. Tres cool!


After the shopping we very fortunately caught a taxi back home (Target is quite far from us!) and then went upstairs to unpack the rest of our stuff. Also, Sameer called a company called RCN and organized for them to come through the next day to hook us up with cable and high speed internet. And that was it for day one for us.