Day One

I had blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Then I went to Chicago with my gigantor load of luggage, which I (and to a greater extent, Dan) had to lug over sidewalks to get to the Urban Studies office, where I will be staying for the next week. Becki and I will be working cleaning grimy apartments for the other Urban Studies students to live in. As a result we get to explore the city............which sucks. Not the city...the exploring. We received CTA week passes which we used several each time with escalating frustration, because we had no idea where we were going. At the one single time we became separated on the Blue Line I made a friend. His name is Jose and he is a very smooth customer. However, I could not use the proffered number as I as yet have no phone. I will work on remedying this in the coming days (weeks? months?) It is of no matter. Needless, we spent clutching our purses, sweating profusely as we clung for dear onto the poles of the trains and booked our tails up the street, once through production for some movie, which appeared to have the attention of the entire Chicago police force, as well as a very sumptuous craft services table (that means yummy vittles not glitter and googly eyes). The apartment we attempted to clean was caked in grime. We will return on the morrow to resume our seemingly futile crusade against crust and mildew. Also Steve's place has a very greasy vegetarian sub, which no doubt would been delicioso if I had eaten when I got it at 2pm instead 8pm when we finally returned headquarters after our exhausting excursion. Now however, I like to think we have gained an intimate knowledge of the train system. Kind of.
Ellen Marie