my sister sent me this cute text message this afternoon:
"z it windy?"
she has an idiosyncratic text messaging style that i find very charming. also, she's the reason i've been to this lovely city before, since she went to graduate school here with her lovely (and then-new) husband. i can't remember whether we came up for her graduation or what, but i do remember the berghoff, restinpeace, and the exceptionally poor suspension of our rental car, which was so bad it had a trademarked name ("Dy-no-ride!").
chicago has come a long way since those heady, alanis-morissette days of the mid-nineties. for one thing, there's an organic restaurant called crust that serves fancy flatbread pizzas and stuff. we had a delicious supper there (with half-priced wine!) and discussed the stark contrasts we saw today: waking up in madison, stopping at a place called the elegant farmer out in the fields of wisconsin, and then creeping into town on the under-construction freeway before landing in this hip, leafy neighborhood called bucktown.
the upshot is, abbie loves chicago and wants to move here immediately. even the truly spectacular apple pie at the elegant farmer could not overpower the alienating vibe, which is only partly about politics and religion, but it's hard to say what the other part is. as soon as we got off the freeway, she started to feel at home.
so anyway. we're apparently definitely moving here unless i can find a more effective way to help her imagine the brutality of the winter. i think the final nail in the coffin was the little bar called the charleston down the street here, which was exactly her style (at least on a monday), which is to say cute and chill with nice lighting and lots of beers on tap... and smoke-free. i have to say, i have never had such a nice bar experience myself either. and i sort of can't believe that there isn't even one place in new orleans where you can go and enjoy beer and fresh air at the same time.
so anyway, we're back in our little home for four nights, happily smelling the lack of smoke in our clothes as we putter around. we have internet here, so we'll put up another post soon that wraps up madison and includes some pictures and video.
comments should be fixed now so that y'all can post anonymously.
we love you and miss you. keep in touch.
4 comments:
I was never so cold as a summer I spent in Chicago. A summer when I only wore shorts twice. That said, I somehow understand the impulse to move there.
-Anonymous Sis
dude! in new orleans you can get beer anywhere, but fresh air no where. it isn't the bars' fault.
I cannot comment on Chitown, except that it is deceptively attractive until you realize the people are all midwestern robots. And it's not that it's so cold in the winter, it's that the snow on the ground in April is the same snow that was there in October.
But Great Place To Visit.
once you live somewhere with winter, the only thing that changes is the thickness of the coat/gloves/scarf. if you were ok in new haven, you would be ok in chicago. NOLA is a whole different world climatically, though.
/peg city correspondent.
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