Sunday, August 29, 2010

Chicago

I've been a Chicagoan for 1.5 months now and here are the conclusions:

Pros:
  • being able to walk to places is awesome
  • Lincoln Park Whole Foods - sells herbs by the pound (including basil), cheese island the size of a regular WF, and beer on tap you can sip while shopping
  • people (most of them, or at least all the ones we met so far)
  • Brugse Zot on tap for $4 as a seasonal monthly special, or always available in a bottle (Kyle and Carly, are you reading this? we have an inflatable bed)
  • WIDE variety of reasonably priced good food (Styrofoam containers everywhere, see Cons)
Cons:

  • Transportation is a mess (traffic is BAD, public transportation is unreliable, bike lanes are far and few between, streets are in a horrible condition, where does the tax money go?)
  • Recycling doesn't exist (all blue bins are either always empty or full of trash and there is no scheduled pickup time, restaurants serve everything in styrofoam, canvas bags are endangered species)
  • Weather - not much we can do about that, but it's amazing people chose to build such a big city in a place where the weather is so shitty