First Days in Chicago

After our exhausting first day in the Windy City, Sean, Erin, Chris, Katrina, and I headed out to see the town. We ate brunch at Ann Sather and spent a few hours exploring the Field Museum before dropping Katrina off at the airport (Katrina's post-Chicago experiences left something to be desired, but we are really glad that she came along). Erin and Chris and Sean and I then drove down to Lincoln Park and ate sushi before coming back to Andersonville's Clark Street to explore the neighborhood where Sean and I now call home. On Monday, we drove around a little more, ate at a fabulous little Mediterranean place in Lincoln Park and then took Erin and Chris to the airport around 4 pm for their flight. 

As we drove away from them, I had a nervous feeling that we were "not in Minnesota anymore, Toto." It was an interesting sensation, knowing that you are not really on vacation and are now alone and expected to be grown-ups in a strange place. We started in with the daunting task of unpacking and cleaning. 

Ahh, cleaning... My friends, in Minnesota, you rent an apartment from a large corporation that cleans the place prior to your arrival after also forcing the previous tenants to clean in order to receive their deposit back (and after all of this I always clean again just in case). In Chicago, you rent from the owners of the place that you are living (who have never lived here), and they do not clean prior to your arrival. And in our case, the previous tenants had also not cleaned in years, if ever. We could not even scrub some of the grime off. It is forever stained. Before leaving, Erin found a pair of used surgical gloves in a kitchen drawer (gross!), and I found another pair later in a different drawer. Sean discovered used razors in the bathroom and an old license plate on top of the refrigerator. 

After some grumbling and complaining, we got down to it and cleaned the entire kitchen and bathroom (which took a considerable amount of time). Our unpacking scheme has been foiled by the dirtiness of the place, so we are still living with a few boxes around even two weeks later. We have multiple windows that still need to be cleaned (at 30-45 minutes for each one), but the place is going to be so cool when we are all done!! Staying holed up in our home, cleaning and unpacking, pretty much encompassed all of our time during that first week of being here. I looked for jobs a little, too, but that is for a different post on a different day. Here is a final picture of Sean and Brigita after a long day of work.