Chicago is absolutely lovely

I'm kind of impressed with how nice people are in Chicago. It's been freezing cold, and it's been snowing almost nonstop so Christine and I didn't go out that frequently, except to eat!! =) There are about a thousand steakhouses here in Chicago, with my favorite one by far being Capital Grille. The city is very pedestrian friendly. All buildings are these gorgeous historic ones with ornate details that have really stood the test of time. We have some of those in NY too, but there are also a great deal of those dark brick buildings and modern new plain concrete ones as well. It seems most buildings in Chicago are beautiful and historic.

So we didn't go out much, due in part to me being allergic to her rottweiler and taking Benedryl (which knocks me out!) so frequently that I spent 1 and 1/2 of my days there just sleeping! But she was such a good sport about it and my last day, we did the "$2 tour" on the brown line through some nice areas of chicago where I snapped these pictures =) Beautiful days in Chicago are that much more treasured because of the weather, but honestly - look how gorgeous it is outside! Keep in mind, despite how nice it looks in these pictures - it is still about 20 degrees here =)

We walked around quite a bit, which you can't tell from my lack of pictures, but it was snowing so often and so heavily that you'd probably only see white-spotted half-pictures! Some memorable events were rushing down Michican Ave (miracle mile), jumping around in order to get a taxi home from Costco, and seeing the ton of pretty Catholic churches in Chicago.

I feel bad, I feel as if this blog entry is really boring and lacking in pictures, but this trip was really great for me. I got to hang out with two people that teach me immeasurable things about life. Christine is one of those girls, if you're lucky enough to have a girl like her in your life, that never tires in reminding me about what's important in life. Some of the lessons I left with (and really needed to be reminded of) were 1) not to let obligation to family scare or guilt you into not setting yourself up to have your own family one day and 2) not to sweat the small stuff and to set limits and really be kind about communicating when something is pushing your limit.

I also got to talk to Jeremy, who was able to navigate the pea soup that is my brain and encourage me about applications to grad school. He said "find a story", "figure out what you want to do" which both sound so BASIC, but I have really been struggling with this the last 12 months. I want to do economic development, but I want a good balance between solitary research (because I like figuring things out) and hands on work because I love to apply things in the real world. I'm fond of the microfinance initiatives going on around the world, but do I want to be a BANKER? I've got to be intellectually challenged, I'd like to collaborate on programs, I need a field of expertise. This is particularly difficult for me because I am in essence a generalist/dilettante/jill-of-all-trades. And when I say I've been struggling I mean like mad-cap, fly all over the world and participate in dozens of far-out, off-the-beaten-track things, short-of-seeing-a-physic things (despite the fact that I did in fact go to Sedona), disparate things like loving Switzerland but not wanting to work in World Trade things. Such crazy stuff that I just know the answer will come to me one day while tying my shoelace.