i love chicago!!

so everyone has always told me that i should go to chicago, and i didn't have anything better to do over fall break, and i figured that would be the ideal time of year to go, so back in august i booked my flight and a hotel room and i just went to chicago for the first time ever.

i loved it.

back when i was considering where to apply for jobs, rudy told me i should do chicago b/c it was the best place in the whole wide world. well, i thought he was a little biased and i thought that it would be silly for me to interview in a city i had never even visited (i tried it with seattle, it didn't go so well. i think most people lack credibility when they do this, but i lack all credibility b/c not only can i not lie, but when i think that people think that i am lying, i sound like i am lying) and i needed to narrow down cities, so chicago was out.

well, within about 2 minutes of being there, i decided i wanted to hop on board the chicago bandwagon. of course, this decision was made in typical laura fashion--i was in the corridor between the airport and the el stop, and there were all these banners and flags hanging, proclaiming all these cities to be sister cities of chicago. there were dozens of them. or maybe a dozen. or six or something. whatever it was, i think it was more sister cities than most places have. and they were good cities! toronto and prague and the such. i figured that was a good sign.

anyways, it was an awesome weekend. i bought some new clothes, spent a good deal of time with molly, her sister and brother-in-law, had some good meals, saw wicked, did a fair amount of sight-seeing, saw rudy and his new place. all in all, great times.

but that does not explain what i love about chicago. so here is just some of what i love about chicago--

• all the people wearing their mid-western state college shirts. ohio state and iowa and wisconsin. i realized this within the first hour or so and i wanted to live there with all of these people.
• all the gardens and parks and flowers. they're everywhere! and real gardens and parks and flowers, not like what new york tries to pass off as a park (with the exception of central park. i'll give that to them. but this is about the "park" where one of my interviewers told me i should go for lunch. i knew i could never live in a city where that's what people thought of as an oasis.) it turns out that chicago's nickname is "urbs in homo" (city in a garden) and it's so appropriate and i love it.
• there are all sorts of pretty buildings. i don't care a hoot about pretty buildings, but there is no denying that the architecture there is amazing.
• so easy to get around. as rudy says, every major city should have a good ole' chicago-style fire, so it can be reconstructed on a grid.
• totally affordable. rudy has just bought a house (in the town that's the first el stop outside of the city! 3 stories! that looks out onto two homes that went for $1.8 million!) and a group of us went to a really nice tapas dinner where we didn't hold back on the food or the sangria, and it ran us $26 a person. with tip. insane.
• lots of cute stores. and not the big-name high-price stores, but lots of cute little stores that sell unique kitschy things that i love.
• and finally, it's a place where you can have conversations about baling hay with other people. i LOVED that. of course, molly couldn't figure out why the hell i was talking about baling hay and how the hell i knew about the machines that would do such things, but this may have been my favorite thing about it. it appeals to the midwesterner in me. no one (except my mom) seems to get that, b/c no one thinks of me as a midwesterner. but i contend that i am. to some degree. and conversations about baling hay make me happy.
• oh, and i saw a cab that was painted like a cow. that rocked.

things i did not like about chicago:

• people do not cross against the light. i'm pretty sure a man yelled at me when i did it once.

things the jury is still out on:

• the weather. i intentionally went at this time of year, figuring i would miss the scalding heat and the bitter cold, and i was right, but i even got a bit of both. and it's supposed to snow there tomorrow. but the thing is that i kinda really like cold weather. the question is if i really like the biting wind that blows to your bones cold that lasts for so long in chicago.

of course, this is all irrelevant since i have accepted my offer in DC and it's not like i would really apply for a job there or anything. but i have decided that if i meet a boy, and he likes chicago or is from there or something, he gets an extra star or two in my book. fine, so this isn't much of an incentive for boys, but everyone needs a system and this is now part of mine.

anyways, yay for chicago and what was the best fall break of my 3 years in law school!