hello chicago!

i arrived last wednesday and its been a hectic few days as i've settled in but in the last four days, i've managed to furnish my apartment, explored a few different chicago neighborhoods (via public transportation! yay!), eat at a number of new restaurants (none of which meet my high standards), hit the beach and two tourist destinations, and run two miles around millennium park. not bad, i think.

chicago is unlike san francisco and new york city, but it definitely holds its own. the weather has been beautiful -- in the 70s so you barely need a sweater at night. i know these good weather days won't last for long so i'm drinking it in while i can.

the people are.. midwestern? haha. they have unique accents and when we attempted to go to some bars/clubs on saturday night, we were surprised to see how dressed up the girls were, as if they were in vegas or something. and the guys... let's just say there was a whole lot of hair gel going on. i am now on a mission to find a social scene that suits my tastes.

the food has been fine but nothing spectacular. we've had deep dish pizza and a chicago hot dog, and tried spanish food, a steakhouse and a good ol brunch place. so far, nothing has gained a 4-star in my book. jeng says i'm just a food snob. yea, probably. we did however discover a little hole-in-the-wall ice cream place last night in lincoln park. i had the campfire marshmallow flavor while sister had amaretto cherry. it was yum.

so far i've visited gold coast (think barney's and ferraris), lincoln park (brick brownstones and young families), and bucktown's damen street (a toned down haight street). i live downtown near a lot of tourists and the huge millennium park. i can even see lake michigan off in the distance. its a pretty cool area, but once again i'm in a financial district without many small boutique shops or restaurants. one day, i will live in one of those cute neighborhoods.

the train lines are pretty simple (once you've navigated NY and SF, everything else is easy), but it is weird to have all the trains rattling overhead instead of buried underground. i also saw a sign i've never seen on any train before, "if you feel treatened, please move to the next train car." that, combined with the fact that all cops wear bulletproof vests, does not make me feel like this is the safest city.

so that's my first impression of chi-town. we'll see what happens next.