As of today, I've now come full-circle in Chicago. Scot & I rolled into town around 2pm on Sept 1, 2007 with little idea of what Chicago had in store for me... or what I had in store for it. The weather was gorgeous (as expected, I've come to find out) and the corporate apartment wasn't too bad either.
But when I got here, I knew little about this place.
Now that I've got a few days under my belt, I feel that I can impart some knowledge to non-Chicagoans and Chicagoans alike. Consider it an orientation on the town. My "list" of things I've learned. Maybe I'm stereotyping, but this is my blog, and I live in a free country. Here we go... in no particular order.
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1) Honking is not only allowed, it's encouraged. Sometimes to alert, sometimes to get out aggression, sometimes to say hello, and sometimes (as taxis do) for no particular reason at all.
2) Taxis are a blessing and a curse. There are many examples of both.
3) Bryn Mawr is pronounced "BRINN-mahr", not "brown MAW-er." save yourself from feeling like a silly tourist when looking for this street. This also goes for Wabansia ("wah-BAN-see-uh", not "wa-bah-NAZHIA").
4) The red line will always smell worse than any of the other L lines in the city. Stay away from the back of the end cars. usually the most pee/vomit/unnamed substances.
5) Yes, Chicagoans really do take St Patrick's Day that seriously. And yes, they do drink that much to celebrate. And yes, it can snow on this day, regardless of the fact that it's mid-March.
6) Coffee is the lifeblood of Chicagoans, and Dunkin Donuts is the blood bank. There are 7 Dunkins within three blocks of my office, a Starbucks in my building, and a coffee machine in the breakroom on every floor. It is not unusual to see coworkers have a coffee from each of these sources in one day. I am now addicted to coffee myself.
7) Baseball is a much more worthwhile experience when the weather is always around 80 degrees. It's even more worthwhile when your team is over a hundred years old. But if the Cubs lose in '08, this town might break into riots and chaos. So pray that the Cubs take the pennant.
8) Chicago is a collection of neighborhoods with very distinct personalities. Even locals learn about new neighborhoods they've never heard of (or visited) even if they've lived here for 10 years. Some neighborhoods are really just a few people who got together and formed a committee to create a district. These really screw people up (me), because they aren't on any map and their borders are really blurred. For example: depending on the map you look at, I live in Lincoln Park, DePaul, and Sheffield Neighbors.
9) The going theory is that busses travel in sets of two, because they take smoke breaks together at the end of their route. This is especially enraging when you wait for 20 minutes in 20-degree weather and then see two of them approaching your stop, jockeying for the pole-position. This happened today. On a holiday. When the wait can be up to 30 minutes.
10) As much as it might seem appealing, do not take the blue line train to or from O'Hare. It's painfully slow, the JFK never has THAT much traffic, and now people have to transfer to a bus two stops from the airport because of construction. Thus, it becomes a 90-120 minute ordeal between the loop and the airport.
11) If you're ever visiting, be a tourist and do three things: see the Cloud Gate at Millennium Park, take a stroll down the Magnificent Mile and pay for the Chicago Architectural Foundation's "Architecture River Cruise". It's worth every penny.
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