Finding an Apartment in Chicago

Now that Rachel's writing for the blog, prepare yourselves to be amazed! We've just come back to Greenville after searching for apartments in the Evanston area (near Northwestern). Our trip was quite eventful, to say the least!

Brandon and I started the trip early on Tuesday. We took our time driving (yes, I drove a little before the keys were snatched away from me), and arrived in Indianapolis that night. We took a couple of hours in the city, and we feel that we saw all Indianapolis had to offer. Yep, people don't plan vacations to Indianapolis. The next day was Brandon's day to comment on everything we passed. He made two thousand references to the cornfields of Indiana, and kept the air conditioning on recirculate the entire way through the pits of despair, also known as Gary, Indiana. Brandon was so appalled by all of the smog and pollution he saw that he could barely keep his eyes on the road. This trip forever marred his impressions of Gary that were created by "The Music Man". It doesn't deserve its own song.

Chicago was a blessed reprieve from Gary, and we are so excited to be moving to a big city! We had our first real Chicago experience as we were looking through apartments and the realtor said, "I won't raise the price of the rent if you're rude to me, but if you say you don't like Da Bears, you're outta here." Of course, we continued to say "Da Bears!" over and over again as the SNL skit goes.
Mom's flight was delayed due to "torrential thunderstorms" in Chicago. I think it was torrential drizzling. How do they handle snowstorms if a little rain scares them??? Anyhoo, she finally arrived but we had actually already signed for an apartment. She held our hands through the approval process, but they finally decided we were acceptable!!

Apartments in Evanston aren't like the spacious, cheap apartments of South Carolina. They've got extra "character", which means they're old and people don't want to pay to update them. Anyway, our apartment is abundant with character, but we're really happy with the hardwood floors and the fake fireplace. So, we rode the 12 hours home triumphant and eager to finish up with our packing and get back up there. Mom hasn't been in Greenville for 24 hours yet, but she's already packed up all of the china and is closing in on the entire kitchen. Did I mention that Mom is magic? She comes and with a flick of her arthritic thumb, makes all troubles disappear.

Well, we're all supposed to be pitching in with packing, and I can't have been working on "business" for this long on the computer. You'll hear from us again once we get the cable hookup in Evanston! Until then!