Sap & I spent a long weekend in San Francisco. It’s somewhere we’ve both wanted to visit for ages and we finally got our chance over the Independence Day weekend.
We were there four days but left thinking we needed more time — we just didn’t get to do everything we wanted. What we did manage to do though was awesome — Alcatraz tour, awesome food, fantastic wine, beautiful city scenery, crazy hills (we got a good workout walking around!), a balloon tour over Napa and an awesome wine tour.
Lots of lovely photos of the trip are over on Flickr. We hope to go back soon.
Another Year, Another St Patrick’s Day Celebration
Following our inaugural Chicago St Patrick’s day celebration last year, we all felt like celebrating again in 2010 in much the same fashion. This time, however, we made sure we got into a bona-fide Irish bar (Emmit’s) by lining up outside at 8am.
We got a table and that was us for the day. Bill & Tracy came down again, Kate & Paul stopped by and Adam was in town (although he left early as he drank too much. Silly oaf.).
Another top St Patrick’s celebration. See the debauchery over on Flickr.
We had a pretty manic end to the year this year. Work for me was pretty hectic but we had an awesome holiday in Mexico just before Christmas. We arrived back to a very chatty cat and a kitchen full of festive food & drink. Now we find ourselves nearing the end of 2009 and so much seems to have happened!
Celebrating One Year in Chicago
November 15th marked our first full year living in Chicago. It’s gone so fast! I had hoped to post something on the 15th for posterity but it just slipped away with everything else we had going on. Seems so long ago since we arrived at O’Hare to be picked up by Ben & Mandy and wander around Chicago awestruck by it all.
Then we had our first snowfall (I still remember being so excited at seeing that much snow. Remember — in the UK snowfall is pretty pathetic!) and Sap, Mandy & I made snow angels (after a few ‘warming’ drinks, of course) as Ben looked on calling us mad…
Thanksgiving 2009
We had ‘our’ first Thanksgiving this year — we spent Thanksgiving 2008 with the wonderful McKee family (and Ben!) — and thoroughly enjoyed it. We cooked good food and drank great drinks. We ordered an apple pie from The Chopping Block — it was amazingly good. Definitely something we will order again next year. Alas they only make them for Thanksgiving and no other holiday.
Celebrating Two Years of Marriage
Sap and I celebrated two years of marriage on the 22nd December. Again, it seems to have gone so fast! We had a fairly miserable first anniversary in 2008 — we went out walking for the day in freezing temperatures so that, by the time we got home, we were too tired & cold to go out for dinner. So we ordered a takeout which turned out to be fairly horrid. We vowed to have a better anniversary this year so we planned a holiday to Mexico. Needless to say it was better in every way!
Our hotel was amazing and we treated ourselves to a relaxing massage whilst we were there. We came back to a soggy Chicago well rested and looking forward to our second Christmas in Chicago.
Christmas 2009
We arrived back from Mexico on Christmas Eve to a very, very chatty cat. As we opened the door she miaowed as if to say “THERE you are! I’ve been looking for you everwhere!” Bless her. She was very happy to see us (as we were really happy to see her — strange how much you miss a ball of fur that constantly wakes you up at 6am!).
We had done all our Christmas shopping for food, presents, drink etc. before we left so there was nothing we had to do — it was bliss! Great planning & organisation by Sap. It’s her thing. So we woke (early) on Christmas morning to let Peppy open her presents first. She got a tunnel (which she LOVES) and a new bed (which she turns her nose up at) as well as some foody things from her relatives across the Atlantic. She was more interested in the wrapping paper than what was in it though.
We Skyped family and then settled down to enjoy a nice warm, cosy, quiet Christmas. It was wonderful. We had two days of lazing around the apartment, eating & drinking all the goodies we had bought.
New Year 2009
We’re off to the Blackrock pub tomorrow night to celebrate 2010 heading our way. It’s the same place we went to last year with Nick, Paul & Nige (can’t believe that was a year ago either!) so we’re really looking forward to it as it was a fantastic evening.
Then we have a few more days off before we head back to work on the 4th. But let’s not think about that yet!
We went out at the weekend for mine & Paul’s birthday (we’re only a week apart). We started at Finn McCool’s (such a great name for a bar) and moved onto another place (who’s name I cannot remember) and then finished at a sushi bar. Yeah, a sushi bar. We only went in for drinks as there was nowhere else open!
Sap won tickets to a Cubs game at work (nice one!) for last Thursday. Hard to believe that despite being here for nearly a year we’ve yet to see a Cubs game!
Unfortunately the game was rained off but we did get to see about 30 minutes of baseball.
Sap and I visited Nayan Bhai and Hemali Bhabi in Indianapolis the other week. We had a great weekend starting with the journey down there on the Megabus. We managed to get seats at the front on the upper deck. Yes, I was like a child!
The highlight of the weekend for me was visiting the Indianapolis Speedway. The place is just massive! We took a bus trip around the track (yes, you can get on a bus and get driven around the track) and stopped at various points, including the famous bricks on the start/finish straight.
The museum at the track houses a fantastic array of cars and motorcycles from all types of racing — there’s even a Benetton F1 car there from 1991.
Nick just left Chicago after a week long visit. We had an absolutely fantastic time — I took some time off work, much needed — and really enjoyed having fun in the summertime. Nick had never seen Chicago without mounds of snow everywhere! We crammed a lot into a week and even then there were things we didn’t get to do. Sounds like the ideal excuse for another visit Nick!
The highlight of his visit, I’m sure, was meeting Pepper. From the moment Nick arrived with his suitcases, she was investigating…
Of course, she got lots of cuddles whether she wanted them or not! When Pepper wants to get down she gently taps you on the cheek. If that doesn’t work, she’ll miaow at you. If that doesn’t work she’ll wriggle free of you!
We went to the Bull & Bear, where the beer taps sit on the table. This means you can pour your own beer…with varying results!
I think the highlight of the trip for all of us was the Segway tour we did at the weekend. It was so much fun — the Segways are so easy to control and are a great way to see the city. We had a fantastic day for it and three hours just wasn’t enough time!
Nick & I also visited the Sears Tower (sorry, ‘Willis Tower’ may be correct but it doesn’t sound right!) They recently installed four glass cubes on the 103rd floor. The worst part was the wait beforehand but once we got up there it wasn’t so bad. Everybody seemed to be taking photos of themselves lying down on the floor of the cubes…so, when in Rome.
We did the usual tour of the sights — we went up the Sears on Nick’s last visit but I don’t think the visibility was as good. One day Sap & Nick went to the cat sanctuary where they fell in love with some kittens. Don’t worry — Pepper is still our only cat! But one of the kittens they saw could have been Pepper as a kitten.
We took Nick to Bin 36 on his last night for some wine & cheese. He and I had the 13 cheese flight — “13 cheese you cannot live without” apparently — and had a wine flight and some port. It was a lovely civilised evening and rounded off a top time.
Come back soon Nick! Bring your onion bhaji with you. More photos of the visit are up at Flickr.
We’ve just had an amazing weekend at Cedar Point in Ohio. We met up with Pat, Wayne & Allison and some of their friends and had a great weekend exploring the theme park and water park.
I went on my first rollercoaster (cherry: popped) and absolutely loved it, even if I was terrified (and very quiet in the line!). I rode Maverick and Raptor on Sunday and loved it.
Didn’t get to take many photos of the weekend but here are the crew at da Point on Saturday.
Bill and Tracy kindly invited us to their annual (but our first) grill-out — American for BBQ! We had a slightly chilly day for it but that didn’t stop me putting shorts on (stiff upper lip and all that).
Bill & Tracy put on a fantastic spread. The day was fantastic, we met some great new people and generally had a brilliant time. We even played charades in the evening — something I am not too good at however Sap got all the easy ones! That’s my excuse anyway!
The day was fantastic, we met some great new people and generally had a brilliant time. We even played charades in the evening — something I am not too good at however Sap got all the easy ones! That’s my excuse anyway!
All in all, a great day. Thanks Bill & Tracy! See you next year!
We’ve had a lovely few days showing Ma & Pa Walshie around Chicago. We’ve done a load of touristy stuff and we’ve had really lovely weather.
They brought a load of UK expat rations with them — we now have a dedicated chocolate cupboard — most exciting of which was the Robinsons squash and, of course, the proper chocolate.
And of course they love their new grandcat — Pepper likes to give Gamdad a nice chew now and then!
We went to see the new Star Trek movie at the iMax on it’s last day last Thursday — Nick, we did try and get the sign into mum’s handbag but, despite her carrying ‘the Tardis’ we couldn’t quite fit it in!
Anyway, we have a few more days of fun and hope the weather holds.
We’re a bit late posting this one but we had a lovely time when the Evans visited us in Chicago recently. They were here for just about a week and managed to cram a lot in!
Millennium & Grant Park, the zoo, the Culture Center, museums, the architectural boat tour, shopping…hats off to you ladies!
It also meant Sap and I could do some ‘touristy’ stuff — the weather was really nice and it was great having people to share our touristy-ness with!
The whole of Chicago turned out wearing green on Saturday for the annual St Patrick’s Day parade. We met Bill, Tracy, Ben & Mandy in a bar near the parade at 11am and the fun started — Guinness for breakfast!
Then it was off to the parade to see random floats and people go by. There was, of course, an Irish feel (well, certainly a ‘green’ feel) and it was a great sight. Ben unsuccessfully tried to get Mandy on his shoulders but Tracy got a great view from up on Bill’s. The parade was still going when we decided to move on after about an hour or so.
We then made our merry way up north, wandering around in the lovely spring sunshine. We made a stop at the river which was dyed green especially for the day — luminous green! We were all a bit shocked at how day-glo it actually was…
All of the Irish bars had queues outside them so we headed to an Italian bar for some drinks and food. Yes, it was an Italian restaurant and yes, it was an Irish holiday. But all the Irish bars had these huge queues — we actually timed one girl in a queue for Fado’s — she was in line for almost an hour. We had eaten, drunk and paid before then.
We hit a few more bars and then decided to get some Thai food (again, yeah, it was an Irish day but hey — the Thai was great!) We finally ended the night in a proper Irish bar, much to Mandy’s delight. Unfortunately they were not playing Irish music so Mandy went to the jukebox armed with dollar bills and threw a load of Irish music on. She also got to eat her corned beef and cabbage — something she’d been saving herself for all day!
We had a great day with top friends — roll on next year! We took a few photos — go check them out on Flickr.
We consulted one of our Chicago guide books at the weekend to see what there is to do in the coming months. We have visitations from Dr Sarah, my parents and the family Humm in the coming months and we’re very excited about Chicago coming out of hibernation!
On that list I’m most excited about hiring a Segway (once the pavements are cleared of snow and ice!). However, there’s lots more we’ve found that we want to do. Once we compile a new list we’ll put it up here to see how many of the things we want to do we get done!
The weather in Chicago has got decidedly warmer this past week — Tuesday (10th) had highs of 17ºC! Needless to say the snow has all melted which is incredibly strange as we’ve never seen Chicago without snow!
It’s made my walk to work a bit more exciting (!) now that there are parts of roads, pavements etc. not covered by inches of snow and ice. It truly felt like spring yesterday, even the wind was warm! After going home for lunch I took the camera for the walk back and got some nice shots of Chicago in spring-like sunshine.
The weather is going to get colder this week, dropping back down to just above freezing by the end of the week (and -8ºC at night) so I’m sure we’ll see some more snow before too long. Still, it was nice to get a ‘sneak preview’ of Chicago in warmer weather!
I’m not normally one for politics or sentiment but today was quite a big day, even for a limey in Chicago.
We gathered in a large meeting room in a corner of the office at about 10.30am to watch the beginnings of the Inauguration Ceremony. Whilst watching it was hard not to get swept up in the occasion of it all and I kept wondering how this sort of ceremonial celebration would go down in the UK. Somehow I can’t imagine Gordon Brown or David Cameron being received as warmly as Barack Obama was today. And how many people have you seen crying when a new Prime Minister is elected?
But there’s a lot to love about the pomp and ceremony. The speech Mr Obama gave was very good — admittedly, it’s the first Presidential Inauguration speech I’ve witnessed — and obviously moved a lot of the crowd to tears. There does seem to be a real sense of change and hope abound.
I wish the new President good luck and know I will look back on today when I’m grey and old!
After weeks of planning, Sap finally turned 30 last Thursday. She was pampered (even if I do say so myself!) and there were lots of surprises throughout the day.
One of which was to go shopping, something she’s not done in ages (perhaps years!). This explains why she struggled to spend any money…even with lots of encouragement from her husband!
Plus it was the coldest day Chicago had experienced in around 12 years. Not a good day to wander around the shops!
Nick, Paul & Nige arrived on Friday afternoon to a nice icy Chicago. We gave a guided tour of the walk back from the CTA station (trying not to slip on the ice whilst wheeling the suitcases) and then the guided tour of the apartment. We then attempted to have a sneaky beer in Monk’s — but horror of horrors, it was closed! (It would prove to be closed for the next two days too. We’ve not tried it today!)
We’ve been to a few bars, taken them to see the Bean & Millennium Park and we’ve had fun on the CTA (we’ve been to Paddy Long’s more often than any other bar! First name terms with the barman helps…) We’ve also been for a beer in the John Hancock tower — a bargain at $65 for five drinks!
Today we’re heading to the Sears Tower as it’s a lovely clear day. Might attempt to see into our apartment from the top of the Skydeck (although that may freak us out!). We may also visit Wrigleyville or Black Rock (the bar we’re going to drink dry on New Year’s Eve). Other options for today include ice skating at the Park.
Another week has flown by and it’s now five weeks since we landed on these shores. Not much has happened in the week just past — it was my last week at work so now I’m off until the 5th January. It’s nice because not only do we have Christmas and New Year to look forward to, it’s our one year anniversary tomorrow…
We had the traditional company Christmas outing on Thursday. We went to an Italian tapas restaurant which was amazing and then onto a bar (called, if I remember rightly, Mother Hubbards!) That’s where it all got a bit messy really. Shots were ordered, cocktails were downed — photos were taken which I will upload soon (honest Ben!). It was a great night though and we all enjoyed sharing the pain of the HW hangover the following day.
Sap and I went out for pretty much the whole day yesterday — we had a lot of errands to run! Sap finally managed to find some waterproof shoes that she likes (this is good) but we did end up going to pretty much every shoe shop in Chicago!
We also bought our Christmas dinner yesterday — we’re going to attempt a traditional dinner in our oven. We do have a backup though — lots of little snacks which we can graze on if it doesn’t turn out quite right! And our local grocery store sells Bisto gravy — I can’t tell you how excited we were when we found that! No mint sauce though…
So after the excursions of yesterday, today is a ‘doing nothing’ day. Just as well really — we don’t want to go outside!
Well we’ve been here a month already — time is flying here! Not much has happened in the two weeks since we last posted an update. Well, nothing on the scale of our trip to Ikea!
We’ve settled in nicely to downtown Chicago but still can’t get used to the view — seeing the Sears tower each night and morning is somewhat surreal given it’s something of an icon for the city. We’re loving the balcony but can’t wait for summer when we can actually sit out on it! It’s a bit windy (not to mention cold) at the moment. But we still take the time to stand out there and take it all in occasionally.
The ‘chores’ of settling in America are pretty much all sorted. We have Social Security Numbers (without which you can’t really do anything) and bank accounts, and the TV is up and running — much to Sap’s delight! I can honestly say we have over a hundred channels but I couldn’t tell you what was on any of them. Sap’s already found the Friends channel so her days have been full! The electricity (the only utility we have to pay for) is almost setup. I had to traipse down to the local Western Union last week to show them my passport and lease — to prove I was who I was saying I was, if you get my meaning. All for the pleasure of paying a bill each month!
We’re still looking at landlines and cellphones and trying to figure out what we’ll need. Since discovering Skype’s amazingly cheap call rates to the UK (and the US) we may stick with good old modern technology for a while!
I have one more week at work — it’ll be a busy one. We have the company meeting and Christmas dinner on Thursday so I’m looking forward to teaching the US guys how the HW crew celebrate! Then we’ll be winding down on Friday and then we’re off! It’ll be nice to have a break, particularly as it’s our first wedding anniversary soon. Neither of us thought we’d be in Chicago for our first one but here we are!
I’ve been going through our photo library and backing it up to Flickr and there’ll be plenty more photos over the coming weeks — not only do we have parties and Christmas but we also have New Year with Nick, Paul and Nige to look forward to. We actually booked the tickets today so we’re very excited!
The next posting is likely to involve photos of the party on Thursday, for which I apologise in advance…
Sapna and I are trying to think of the things we want to do in Chicago when people visit. Here is an initial list — from Ben! Although I did add the Segway part in myself…
Sears Tower
Dinner at John Hancock (could be expensive?)
Boat ride (architectual tour)
Millennium park
John’s place (a great breakfast)
Cubs day game
Lou Malnatis (fantastic pizza place near Ben & Mandy)
Magnificent mile (or ‘shopping’)
Orange (a great diner, apparently)
Boat on the lake
Museums — art, science
Aquarium (Sap would love this)
Piece Brewery
Goose Island
Jazz clubs
Brew & View (a cinema AND a bar? Could this be the best day in the world?!?)
As promised, here is the long, long story of our trip to Ikea last weekend.
As previously mentioned, Ikea’s delivery rates are outrageous. So we thought we’d be clever and hire a truck to get to Ikea. Mandy kindly offered to drive us around for the day which was an enormous help — we literally could not have got our stuff without her!
So we picked our U-Haul up early on Sunday morning and drove to Ikea. What started as a small rain shower turned into a full blown snowstorm by the time we got parked up — at the time we hoped it wasn’t an omen of things to come!
Sap had prepared our shopping list (having extensively researched all the bits and pieces we needed online first) so we hit the entrance knowing what we needed. Prime amongst those requirements was a bed — a nice, new, comfy bed. From the Malm range. In oak. Queen size.
As we walked through the entrance, I saw a sign — Ikea had just finished their Black Friday sale — and on it, at the top, were three words I really had hoped we wouldn’t see next to our bed.
Out of stock.
Unbelievable! I was livid. All that way and we could even get the first thing we needed. We were incredibly downbeat! But Sap said we should push on, so we did. Next up was some new bed clothes for our non-existant bed. The purple ones Sap had chosen — out of stock. We couldn’t believe it! At this rate we’d end up taking a couple of sets of coathangers back in the truck!
However, I had misread the sign. Ikea had offered a limited quantity of our bed at a discount price, and it was these that were sold out. There were plenty left at the regular price! Added to that, Sap found a pile of the purple bed clothes that we were after. So we went from utter dispair to unlimited joy (really, the emotions were that extreme!) in the space of a minute or so.
Anyway, the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. We managed to load four trolleys with everything we needed. As expected, I nearly had heart failure when the total came up on the till! But we were starting from scratch and we hadn’t compromised on anything that we wanted, so we were happy.
We got all our lovely new stuff loaded into the truck (the snowstorm was still in full flow!) and headed home. We knew we would need to use the freight elevator at the apartment to get everything up — the bed in particular was quite heavy. We’d arranged beforehand to use it from 6.30 for half an hour and we just managed to make it. It was quite a rush to get back and I must admit to feeling very stressed — I kept picturing our new apartment furniture stranded downstairs!
But we made it. Just. Then we had a beer on the balcony of our new home and Ben & Mandy took the truck back. By now it was gone 9pm but I was determined to build our new bed!
I eventually got done just after midnight and we gratefully slipped into a nice, new, big, comfy bed.
I would, of course, spend the next few evenings assembling various bits of furniture but it’s all worth it. The bedroom looks great and the TV stand (expertly assembled by Sap) is lovely. We can’t wait to continue furnishing the apartment — we’re steering clear of Ikea though! Think I’ve had my fill of flatpack Swedish design for one lifetime…
There are more photos of ‘apartment life’ over at Flickr, so go have some fun looking at the various boxes. See if you can spot our first meal in the apartment — we ate it off a box!
Sap, Ben, Mandy and I went to a house party on Saturday. The theme was ‘terrible Christmas sweaters’ — something that sounded a lot of fun! Our first challenge would be to find four sweaters terrible enough…so we hit the shops.
We went to a few outlet-style stores and found some truly horrendous sweaters — including a pink one with kittens on — but nothing that was truly ‘Christmassy’ enough. We then hit a jackpot — an entire store devoted to the art of terrible Christmas-themed sweaters!
Although I wasn’t allowed to spend $60 on one with flashing LEDs (I know, it would have been awesome, right?) we did manage to find some beauties. Bizarrely enough they all had shoulder pads — Ben had the look, that’s for sure!
We met a lot of great people and had a fantastic time. We also had our first experience of a party with a keg — something of a novelty for us Brits who are used to drinking warm cans of Carling at house parties!
The time flew by really quickly and before we knew it we were heading back to Ben and Mandy’s (having missed our last train back downtown).
Sap and I were very excited about the prospect of celebrating our first Thanksgiving with the McKee family. Being Englishers we had no idea what the holiday was all about — a quick visit to Wikipedia solved that issue! The entire McKee family were incredibly excited about Thanksgiving, citing it as a better holiday than Christmas!
Thanksgiving always falls on the fourth Thursday in November and is a public holiday. Even nicer was the fact that I also had the Friday off which turned out to be just as well seeing as we rose very early to go shopping! More on that in a bit.
Meeting the McKees
The McKees arrived on Wednesday evening and we jumped straight into the celebrations by going out for dinner. We were looking for a BYOB (Bring Your Own Booze, a fantastic concept that isn’t widespread in the UK) restaurant. After some walking (those types of restaurant are very popular!) we found a pizza place and ordered two pizzas between the 7 of us. Well, that was plenty — everything you’ve ever heard about American portion sizes (steady now!) is absolutely correct! We had to take some home in a box! Chicago does this fantastic deep pan pizza which has the cheese on the bottom and the tomato sauce on top — kind of an ‘upside-down’ pizza. Fantastic.
Thursday was the big day: Thanksgiving proper. The day started early with egg strada which is basically an oven baked omelette with bread in the bottom. It sounds strange but was absolutely fantastic, something of a tradition and we can see why! Then it was onto the cooking which took most of the day!
I decided to stay out of the way (apart from nosing around with my camera!) and enjoyed the hustle and bustle coming from the kitchen. All sorts of dishes were being prepared, from the traditional turkey through to Ben’s date and prune delights! When it all arrived at the table it was quite a sight. Needless to say it was demolished within minutes!
All Hail the Cheeselord
Even better to come was the selection of cheeses that Ben had bought. He’s found a great cheese shop near to where we work — he spent 45 minutes choosing his selection in there prior to Thanksgiving! I must say the choices were fab — it was true cheese overload! He bought so much that we were still eating it three days later…
The day ended with card games (we’re really getting into those!) and with Ben and I demolishing some Mount Gay. The measures in the McKee/Allen household certainly are generous! We also met Mandy & Ben’s neighbours Keith and Kim and their two children Audrey & Lucas who were great — Sap has since had a lunch date with Kim and is becoming quite the socialite!
Black Friday
Sap and I woke at stupid o’clock (5am) on Friday to hit the shops. Black Friday is the retail day in the States — you can bag some bargains…if you have sharp elbows, no sense of humanity or courtesy and are prepared to wait in line at 5am.
We hit the local Target (no pun intended!) just as it opened at 6am. We had a few bargains we wanted to get (a vacuum cleaner with 50% off — rock and roll!) We also picked up some really nice cookware from Macy’s (including a cast iron skillet which I’m very excited about!)
Saturday was the day we were moving into our new home — that’s a different (and long!) story. More soon.
All in all we had a fantastic few days — Mandy’s family were lovely and very welcoming. We’re hooking up with Alison at New Year — something else we’re really looking forward to!
We woke up to our first morning in our new apartment to a Chicago cityscape covered in snow! It was raining for most of Sunday (we endured a blizzard at Ikea!) which turned to snow overnight.
We had a very manic Sunday — more later. Plenty of fun in the U-Haul, Ikea (man, that place is a time-sponge!) and building a bed until midnight last night! Feels good to be in our new home though.
It looks like this week is going to be a cold one — we’re still trying to get our heads around the Fahrenheit temperature scale (when American’s say it’s below freezing, they’re generally referring to the ºF scale — which is chuffing cold!).
Well Sap and I experienced a fantastic thanksgiving yesterday — Mandy’s parents (Wayne and Pat) and her sister (Allison) came over for the day and we all had a fabulous time eating, drinking and being very merry. We took a lot of photos which we’ll post soon.
Today is Black Friday — equivalent to the Boxing Day sales in the UK. Shops generally open early at around 6am, including the local Target. Which is where Sap and I stood in line at 5:50am this morning. We got a great deal on a vacuum (was $49, we paid $30) and bought a load of other bits and pieces for our new home.
We’re just off downtown to attempt to browse Bed, Bath and Beyond. Wish me luck!
Well I can’t quite believe we’ve been here a week already — it seems like it’s been much longer yet it also feels like it’s flown by. It’s a strange feeling. Does it feel like home yet? Difficult to say, mainly because we’re not in our own place yet. However…
We’ve got a home!
I got a call at my desk on Thursday (20th) saying our apartment was vacated, cleaned and ready for us to move in. Very exciting! We have a move date of this coming Saturday (29th) so Sap and I are getting things ready for the move. We’ve bought some inflatable mattresses in case our bed doesn’t arrive on time — we’re attempting to hire a van to get to Ikea instead of paying their extortionate delivery charges (over $200 on over $1000 worth of stuff) so we’ll see how that goes.
Anyway, we took a peek at our apartment last Saturday and fell in love all over again! It was fantastic and the views across the city are just amazing — check out the view (above)!
Trekking to Ikea
In order to furnish our lovely new place we took a trip to the ‘local’ Ikea to browse for furniture. We kind of knew what we wanted but needed to test out the different mattresses.
It turned out to be a bit of a trek — no simple jaunt down the M4 in the US! Not having a car proved to be a bit of a pain in the arse this time! We basically had to get the Blue CTA line for about an hour then Bill kindly drove us for another 20 minutes or so to the Ikea in Schaumberg. Getting there was OK — getting back was a pain!
We had to take a cab from Ikea to the nearest Blue CTA line — at a cost of $40 — with all our purchases. Admittedly they only amounted to 32 coat hangers and a pillow each but we still had fun on the train lugging it all around! Then we got a bus from Logan’s Square to Ben & Mandy’s. Phew! So we hope to have an easier journey when we hire our U-Haul!
So, we’ve got a home, plans to furnish it and things are looking good!
Tune in next time to see if John can convince Sap to let him buy $300 worth of Global knives…
Of course, the first part of our journey to Chicago involved leaving Reading — and friends, family and loved ones — behind.
To celebrate we threw a party at Zero Degrees. This is when the reality of our move dawned on us — we may never see some of these people again for a very long time!
Having said that, everyone was keen to come and visit so I’m sure we’ll be seeing lots of friends throughout this year.
Well we finally landed in Chicago on Saturday after an 8 hour transatlantic flight. Once we were through customs & immigration we hauled our five suitcases (!) out into the cold — welcome to Chicago! Ben & Mandy kindly borrowed a friend’s Jeep to come and pick us up and we did a great job of filling it with luggage. A short drive to their apartment just off Diversey and there we were — proper Chicago-ians!
The hunt for an apartment began in earnest on Sunday where we had an appointment at the Left Bank at Kinzie apartment block. Sap had been looking at these apartments for weeks and we were all very excited to see them. We had a look around and fell in love with it — I was all ready to book it there and then but Sap and Mandy tempered my enthusiasm saying we should look at some more.
So Sap booked some appointments for Monday whilst I went to my new workplace and met my new colleagues — more on that later. Sap did find some really nice apartments with fantastic views — the one below was a lovely apartment that offered a view of the Hancock Tower out of one window and Sears out of the other!
We ultimately decided against this apartment as it was around $200 per month more than Left Bank and it had a landlord — as opposed to a leasing agent. That would mean we’d need to deal directly with the landlord if anything happened (leaky taps, broken refrigerator etc.) which we were slightly uncomfortable with. So we decided to go with our first love and arrange to live in an apartment in the Left Bank complex.
We went along yesterday lunchtime and signed all the paperwork — once the apartment’s been vacated, cleaned & painted we’re in! We can’t wait.
This photo shows us in front of our new home. It’s on the 35th floor and promises to offer stunning views across the city & river. Even better is that it’s only a 5 minute walk from my office! Speaking of which….
John Gets A Spanky New Desk
I arrived for my first day in the US office very excited — I knew Bill but hadn’t met any of the other members of Team America. I was made to feel very welcome and we went out for a celebratory burger at lunch — it was awesome.
I have a massive desk and am struggling to fill it! My new Apple keyboard and mouse should be here today and I’ll likely go get a Cinema Display as well. Then I’ll be set! The best thing though? A free Starbucks machine. It’s so good I had to go get a mug capable of holding all that lovely free caffeine!
So our first few days in Chicago have been very exciting — a new home, new desk and a new coat (for me). Although that’s going back to the shop as it creates too much static electricity each time I put it on! But man is it warm!
We’re looking forward to moving into our new home and furnishing it — the post-Thanksgiving sales start next Friday so we’re going to go armed and ready!
Sap & I spent a long weekend in San Francisco. It’s somewhere we’ve both wanted to visit for ages and we finally got our chance over the Independence Day weekend.
