Hyde Park 101

I know. I'm shameless when it comes to beautiful stuff like this. But yes, this is where we live.

We don't literally live IN these buildings, they're just scattered around the the neighborhood. And I don't really know their names. Whatever. Pretty Building works for me!

A little more than one week into it, we've finally finished setting up the apartment, have explored the city (or at least our little corner of it) and are starting to settle in. I started my part-time bakery job today...and just a note. Working in a bakery is MUCH HARDER than sitting at a computer all day! Don't get me wrong, it's awesome. It's just...you have to constantly be with-it and smiling and remember a million different things. It's hard!! So next time someone helps you at the local bakery or coffee place or whatever, be nice to them!! Anyway...

Here's my new favorite restaurant: Medici. Medici first opened in the 1960s, first as a coffee and art shop, now as a full-blown (and full on fabulous) restaurant. It's probably most famous for some of its favorite patrons (not me. Or at least not yet): the Obamas. We enjoyed a pizza and salad outside, as the weather has been phenomenally wonderful the last few days.

Next on our tour: our apartment! As of yesterday, it's FINALLY set up. Below is a picture of our living room and then a picture of the outside (sorry, no pictures of the bedroom, bathroom or kitchen, mostly because they're slightly messy). It's on the third floor of a walk-up, with two beautiful trees outside of the window, great hardwood floors and new windows! Apparently a guy who lived in the apartment across the way had to tape his windows shut before so his cat wouldn't fall out. Thanks for the new windows UChicago!

And finally, here's our street: E Hyde Park Blvd. I took this picture through the windshield, so it doesn't completely capture its beauty. But man, it's beautiful. Tree-lined, wide, with beautiful buildings on both sides of the street. It's also a main bus line (again, thank God for the new windows that block out the noise) making it very easy to get to the University and around the town.

So it's finally starting to feel like we actually live here. M walks to math camp each morning, I head out to the bakery, then spend the afternoons looking for jobs. On the weekends we wander down to the lake, wander into the city or just laze around. We're finally starting to make friends and I'm getting plugged in to the children's stuff at the church we're attending. Life is good. It's different. It's not DC. But Hyde Park has its own little charm, its own quirks, its own crazy people that I'm starting to love as well.