Week Three!

Where to start with week 3! It has been incredible. I have just returned from watching the Chicago Air and Water show at the Residence. The planes flew right past our windows, it was so exciting! We had spectacular views of the water too. Here are some pics! 

I wanted to start my review of the week by setting the scene to my daily commute to work. I live practically on Lake Michigan, which is connected to downtown by a road called Lakeshore Drive. As you can probably work out, this road runs right a long the lake. I get on a bus by the harbour at the end of my road, ride it for 10 minutes down Lakeshore Drive and get off on the 'Magnificent Mile', smack bang in the middle of downtown, where I work. Here is my commute in pictures! 

The Magnificent Mile is the road in Chicago with the tallest buildings, biggest shops and most electric atmosphere. The contrast from my serene lake view apartment is incredible and whichever area I am in at the time I maintain is my favourite part of Chicago. In reality, I love it all and the whole city is just wonderful.

Work has been great. Really, really great. I have been out and about quite a bit this week, with visits to the University of Chicago and UIC. I attended an event on international perspectives on climate change with our Vice Consul of Innovation and Economics, which was so interesting. I put together the power-point for her presentation there and even got to answer a question from the audience about the UK perspective on the debate. We got to meet people from the Japanese, Brazilian and Argentinian Consulates who were presenting there too, which was a lot of fun. 

In the office, I have been making calls ahead of an upcoming visit we have by a UK government official. Part of my role here is to co-ordinate visits by British UK government members to Chicago and arrange meetings for them with their US counterparts. When making these calls, I have found my accent to be an all round excellent ice breaker. If all else fails, they still want to know whether I know William and Kate personally, or congratulate me on the Olympics. 

Evenings have been jam-packed and fabulous. Tuesday night, a colleague and I jumped on the 'El' (Chicago's famous train) straight from work to Wrigleyville, where I caught my first Cubs game! Baseball is so popular in Chicago, and the Cubs are their one true love. They are an atrocious team who haven't won the world series in over 100 years. It doesn't seem to matter one bit. Their fans are some of the most loyal in the country, games are always packed and the atmosphere is one of fierce pride. I enjoyed the game so much! The Cubs lost 10-1, which meant I had experienced the true value of a Cubs game- it has nothing to do with the winning and everything to do with the tradition, patriotism and buzzing atmosphere. I had a ball. Pics...

Thursday evening I went with a few work colleagues on a 'tour' with the Chicago History Museum. Swap the word 'tour' for 'crawl' and you get the idea. We learned about Chicago's history in between making our way through some of its oldest pubs and bars. Mildly informative and a whole lot of fun. I didn't take my camera to work that day so I will leave the scenes to your imagination. Instead, here are a couple of pictures of 'the bean' at night. The bean is Chicago's architectural masterpiece, which I absolutely love. It reflects the city's skyline from 360 degrees and is really quite spectacular when you walk round and under it. 

Other notable activities from this week include going up the Willis Tower and attending an evening concert in Grant Park. The Willis Tower is the tallest in Chicago and was once the tallest in the World. On the top floor, glass boxes are suspended over the city. Grant Park, meanwhile, offers free concerts on Friday nights during the summer and we managed to get to one yesterday. We took a picnic rug and relaxed after a long week, it was really quite something. 

I am off to Kentucky tomorrow morning until Tuesday and then I am going to Indiana on Thursday... I will have much to report by next weekend I am sure! Love to all!