Guest Blogging

I have been granted the honour of guest blogging on Emma’s blog (Is there an internet moniker for this? If ‘web logging’ becomes ‘blogging’ what does ‘guest blogging become? Glogging? Globbing..? Suggestions in the comment box below...) and, whilst I’ll struggle to match her levels of erudition and wit, I hope to pop up now and again on here with my view on life in Chicago.

The week has been one of (typically) one of us chasing around trying to get the next piece of admin sorted with the other occupying the kids. Fighting the bureaucratic machine has given us a mixed level of success, particularly with the lack of the critical social security number. Responses have ranged from the helpful (the cable tv doesn’t care who you are it seems!) to the pernickety (Gas co continually insists on more ID, and are still not happy) to the downright obstructive (the Department of Motor Vehicles isn’t even going to talk to us about a driving licence until we have a SSN. See Emma's comments below on the problems with this...!)

Next up, and I suspect this is going to pop up in conversation quite a lot over the next few months, but I do have to mention the weather. Obviously this seems a terribly British thing to do, but it does also seem to be the current opening topic with the local Chicagoans. (“How are you finding the cold weather?”) We wandered out at lunchtime Friday in a nippy 19F (-7 C for European readers) but because it was a perfectly clear blue sky and snow on the ground it was actually very beautiful – as long as you were well wrapped up. I’d take that option over it being 10 degrees warmer in the UK but raining and grey. Until, that is, you walk past a junction and an icy cross wind, funnelled down a concrete canyon, blasts you to the core through all your layers of clothing. At which point we went scurrying off to buy yet more winter clothes…

Actually I will be less bullish on the weather after this morning. It was seriously colder this morning (I heard -20 C with the wind chill). Just breathing in gave you the sort of headache you get from eating ice cream too fast...

We continue to settle into the house, which is a great place to live but I would illustrate as follows. (I will illustrate with photos at some point, but have yet to track the right leads down in all the boxes!) The biggest “pro” being the the proximity of downtown from our place. (Front door to work desk in 22 minutes. Fellow commuters on the DLR: read and weep.) The biggest “con” (and one reason for the short commute) being the very close proximity to the El! We should have warned all the people we invited to stay that they will face a constant rumbling of trains 50 yards away. Emma’s solution to it was to say that she prays God would bless those who travel on it each time it goes past. I have yet to reach the same level of maturity or insight as my wife.

Our stuff has also started to arrive which really helps this house feel like so much more of a home than where we stayed in the summer. The air freight (mainly cooking stuff) arrived on Friday, and the sea container with all our furniture turned up today. It's all still in boxes, but no more sleeping on the floor from Tuesday night! Hurrah!

Lastly for now, moving house like this is always tiring and at the end of the year we are all feeling run down. However once you combine that with the plan to be part of a church plant then health is an obvious area of attack. I am on my third cold in 2 months, and on Friday Emma started throwing up and carried on until last night although we suspect this was self inflicted – as none of the rest of us are suffering, we are blaming a dodgy burrito! Anyhow, we continue to value your thoughts, prayers, and messages. We should be up and running with internet access at home by the end of this week or so, so hopefully can start to respond to them!

David