On the Road Again

I'm back in Chicago, again at the Marriott Medical District. Nice hotel: sweet king bed, nice rolly leather chair and desk, even a wet bar. I'm up here for UIC's second look, a program where the school highlights itself without the pressures of interviewing. It's a chance to check out UIC and possible future classmates before the May 15 deadline of picking what school you want to attend. Other schools make second look into a weekend affair, usually involving some sort of social outing. For some reason UIC does neither: it's a one day thing without any kind of bar outing. I'm hoping there's an informal get-together tomorrow night.

While I'm here, I figured I'd check out the area and get a look at some apartments. Since UIC is divided into an East (undergrad) and West (med) campus, the area in between has parts with a collegetown feel. I've found some local ethnic restaurants and a couple of decent looking bars, without even venturing over to the East campus yet. I've also found an apartment that's definitely the front runner. Two bed, two bath townhome for $925 with secure parking included. The free parking's a big deal. Another place I looked at charged $185 per month for parking. And that's on top of the $1000/month for a studio. Hopefully the place will check out when I ask about it tomorrow, because it seems like too good of a deal.

A couple of random observations from the day. I have got to start making my own mochas: damn you Espresso Royale. Mochas are good stuff, but $3+ a pop adds up over time. My car has shitty luck with bumps and bruises; today I found that someone had keyed my driver side door. Asshole. Left lane drivers suck. I don't care if you're doing 65 or 85. If there's a line of cars behind you, move your ass over or speed up. With all the construction going on on the Dan Ryan and southern Tristate, I don't know if there's ever a period of time when you drive faster than 50. I've also come to the conclusion that the Eisenhower just east of the Tristate is in a perpetual traffic jam. Every time I drive through a certain one mile stretch, it takes way too long. While trying to find a spot at Rush's parking garage, there were probably 5-8 spaces that would have been available on the lower levels. But apparently not everyone can park between lines. Hell, someone even parked directly on a line and was taking up exactly half of two spaces. Come on people.

Driving, keying, construction, and parking aside, I'm pretty excited about the area and moving. After walking around for a few hours, I'm almost positive that this is where I'm gonna end up. Oh yeah, and there are some sweet views of the city. Both of the pics in this post were taken from atop a parking garage, and there are views like this all around Rush and UIC.