I Survived the First Weekend!

I packed up the UHaul Thursday afternoon, and, thanks to one of my new classmates, had all of my stuff delivered to my new building Friday evening.  Since I flew out with the family on Friday morning, we had the afternoon for some exploring and planning for the new set up.  The first notable feature of the apartment is this:

The view from my window (Hello Bean!)

I could definitely get used to this.

After moving everything into the apartment, we only got around to putting my bed back together before realizing the sun was going down and everyone was hangry.  After grabbing some snacks at the hotel, we headed to get real dinner at this restaurant:

Howells & Hood at the Tribune Building

This place has some seriously good food and a ridiculous beer selection (more than 100 beers on tap!).  It also has great people watching and an awesome patio (which is the same size or bigger than the indoor part of the restaurant) that I had admired from afar when I was in Chicago for work in May.

Another awesome part of the Tribune building are all of the stones from other places that have been incorporated into the exterior stone work.  For example:

A little piece of home

 A little piece of Greece (This is mostly for Athina)

Apparently Colonel McCormick, the former owner of the Chicago Tribune, asked his correspondents to bring back fragments of historical buildings.  While I doubt that most of the pieces were obtained legally, it's pretty cool to be able to "travel" the world by just walking around a building.

Before my family headed back to the airport on Sunday, we took an architectural boat tour of Chicago and learned a lot about my new city and its history.

It was a gorgeous day to be out on the water!

This week I'm starting to be social and meeting my classmates.  Yesterday, Roommate X and I went out exploring while we still have the luxury of free time.  We wandered around Hyde Park and campus and went for an evening run through Millenium Park and down Lake Shore Dr.  I haven't run in at least a month and was surprised to find out that we ran 3.5 miles only stopping to walk for a minute in the last 1/2 mile.  Proud!

I can't wait to spend the rest of the week getting to know my roomies (now that Roommate P is here too)!  Next stop: brunch with the DC crew and starting to pack for Jordan!

Love,

The Chicagtonian