A big, fat pigeon eating by the sidewalk caught my eye. In the alcove between the business door and the (closed and locked) security gate, there were 15 - 20 pigeons eating; someone had left them food there.
I expected Chicago to be like big cities in the northeast, but it's not. It's cleaner, generally feels safer to this out of towner, and is overtly friendlier. There are lots of friendly people in, say, NYC, but as a visitor you might not realize this. Chicago folk have that neighborly mid-western thing going on. Businesses make you feel welcome, and other patrons are ready to talk. Cars often defer to pedestrians. Less people will reply to a howdy on the street than in Austin, but more than will reply (or at least nicely) in NYC.
There are a lot of good restaurants here. I'm uptown, and the prices are similar to downtown Austin, but it's a much larger city. And the food is excellent. The icons (Lou Manalti's, Portillo's) lived up to their hype, but there are so many fantastic holes in the walls! And lots of good coffee shops. Within a block of here are Ch'ava (coffee shop with good, interesting sandwiches) and Tiztal Cafe (incredible breakfast fare all day long, among other things). Nellsyn works at a new restaurant, Endgrain, that has been open six months and already featured on prominent foodie shows. I would love to have all three in Austin.
I haven't seen anyone "reserve" a parking space on the street by sticking a lawn chair or something in it, but apparently that's a thing. I guess if I spent a half hour shoveling out a space I'd like it back, too. There's no legal basis for it but it generally works. I hear tires can get slashed if you "steal" one of these spaces. Kinda rough on newbies!
We're in a third floor apartment. The radiators are centrally controlled, and come on when they want. It's too bad we can't turn them off, because the floors below us heat the place just fine most of the time, even in subzero temps.
The other night I tried opening the inner and outer windows to cool my room off a bit, but sirens regularly scream by within a few blocks, as they do in any big city. Leaving the outer (double pane) window open and closing the old, single pane inner window made a huge difference in temp, but still kept the sirens at bay. Odysseus[1] would be proud.
Speaking of radiators, these are the noisiest I have ever heard, If I'm almost asleep and they start snorting, whistling, wheezing, coughing, hissing, and humming (at times reaching 65 to 70 db) I have to stick a pillow over my head to escape the raucousness.
Overall I have been impressed with the CTA[2]. There was that one bus that wouldn't sop, and the other night a couple of train cars smelled like someone had puked in them (identical smells in two cars, just less pungent in one). Nobody on the train had smelled it before. As far as I know the cars do not have common air conditioning, so what was up with that? Stinky cleaner? Bulemic convention?
As frustrated as I get in Austin that you can't readily find shorts and swim suits all year long, it's almost insane that you can't find cold weather gear here at least throughout the winter. We're just getting into the really cold part, and some places have no snow boots left; the rest are picked over. Other stuff varies, but overall the selection is less than I expected. To Heck with the conventional garment seasons! Where are Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, and his spoon when when I need them?
NOTES
[1] I started to write "Olysses". What's up with that?
[2] Chicago Transit Authority[3]
[3] The actual transit authority, not the band, or its sel-titled first album, still one of my favorites after all these years.
Copyright 2013 Miles O'Neal, Round Rock, TX. All rights reserved.
