Floridaaaaaa!

I can't really relate all the things we did in Florida. Bits and pieces will have to do.

- Oh we hang out, eat fruit.
- Ooold people...
- Every great deal needs a giant gorilla.
- That's what she said.
- *That* was a sexy pose?
- Sweet tomatoes!!!!
- What turns you on in someone?
- Lotion time.
- You've got it made, dude, having the girls peddle!
- Question mark?
- Wet 'n Wild
- I'm gonna scream.
- I'm an alien, you're an alien...
- Ribs and boobs.
- Bikini check!
- We're twins. Only, she's tall.

Yes, that kinda says it all.
Good times.

Downtown Chicago in a nutshell (or at least my past couple of days).

Amazing view, everywhere you look. The city is still crazy. So is Randy. In a good way, both of them.
Free concerts in Millennium Park all summer. Better be there!
Russian tea is cute, thanks Hilary!
A cruise on the lake, with free dinner and fireworks, plus a party on the water. Decadent for sure.
(Note: no matter how fancy some girls dress up, they still act slutty once the music's on and the drinks are being poured)

Gotta jet! Chicago's calling.

Get what you want and stay

Tonight I got a taste of the Chicago life.

The city offers a good chicken curry salad.
And the most a-ma-zing jazz quartet. Vintage jazz played by genuine artists.

Tonight I rediscovered I-House.

I-House offers an exquisite choice of free ice cream (they even have moose tracks, my favorite kind here!) and 'accessories', being bananas, peanut sirup, chocolate sauce, chocolate chunks, whipped cream, cherries, all kinds of cookies. And brownies for desserts.
And the most amazing friends who can play the guitar, who you make nice plans with and most importantly, who are there for you when you're having a hard time. There are guys who get what they want and leave, but also people who get what they want and stay.

From now on things should only get better: some downtown concerts, Russian tea, a cruise on Lake Michigan, the department BBQ, a trip to ann Arbor. And that's only this week. Next week: Florida!

Life is a game I'm gonna be good at from now on.

That's what she said.

March 23, 2008. Skip 14 months, in which you have a more active social life than ever, do more bar all-nighters than you can cope with and write a 270-page book that doesn't satisfy you the way you'd hoped but seems good enough to serve its purpose; hop on an 8-hour flight to Chicago and realize nothing has changed at all. Which is not a bad thing.

To be fair, the snow is gone. Chicago is nice in the summer indeed. As for the many concerts and festivals: yet to be discovered, but they sure will be. But the people and me, we haven't changed. Not a single bit. Same stories, to be continued. Same drama, some mistakes, same "OMG, is she *still* here?", same fun, same places. Just as I expected.

Chicago.
I loved it when it was freezing.
I love it even more when it's hot.

That's what she said.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

I miss Chicago. I miss the peeps from the department, my roommates, the I-House crew. I miss Hyde Park (I don't miss the snow, because yes, we happen to have that here too now, and it's messing with 'the system' in Belgium big time). I miss being able to have fried chicken, even though I only ate it once there. I miss talking English all the time and I hate people making fun of me for subconsciously slipping English words in my stories when I'm telling them about 'my' city. I even miss the banging (!) sound of the radiator in my apt at the times it was actually working and the annoying drip of the bathroom tap. Or Petey's alarm clock tune that kept going off. Yes, even all those kind of irritating things. I'm definitely Chi-sick.

I just realized I'm home. I just realized I felt much more at home in Chi-town, though. At least for now. I started crying. I have been brave and strong up to now, but I cracked. Better go to bed...

in one day I'll be outa here...

Last days are never cool. Packing, doing the last bit of laundry, more packing, saying goodbye, eating left-over food, trying to get rid of the last dollars (because who wants those in Europe), then realizing you still need some americamoney for something (luckily ATMs are all over the place here, even when you need them), more saying goodbye, trying to make everything fit into that one big bag until it starts dawning in on you that it will never do, plus that you've got wayyy too much luggage for a little girl anyway and you'll never be able to carry it to the airport, starting to worry about getting to the airport tomorrow, wondering whether you might wanna take that cab after all instead of the 'el', then realizing you will need more cash for that (here's where the ATMs come in again).

So no, last days are never cool (or: yes I worry too much).

Oh and saying goodbye once more, because for some reason I'm socially retarded when it comes to that. Awkward!

I still don't fully realize I'm not gonna be here next week, so today is just a regular awkward day to me. I've had those before, I can handle it. Even without crying. I think. Boohoo.

about missing things and people

Ok, it's not that I am completely out of conversation topics, but let's talk about the weather, for a change. Chicago today is cloudy, grey, rainy. Chicago is not very cold at the moment, maybe a little windy but nothing that will blow even me away. There is no snow at all anymore, not even the half-melted dark dirty-ish heaps on the side of the road. There is no sun anymore either, unlike what I've seen on the majority of even the most wintry days. There is only mud and wetness, a lot of wetness. Yes, Chicago is preparing me for something I haven't been missing at all but am gonna get anyway from next week on.

Believe it or not, one of the things I am gonna be missing is the Chicagoan weather. Seeing that I've only experienced winter, you might think I've gone insane. But maybe I am just a fan of extremes. At least now I know what it feels like when your legs are freezing off. Or maybe I just like sun beams on my face for most of January and February. Yes, I like sunshine, no matter what the temperature (in Celsius or Fahrenheit). Of course, I, too, prefer it above freezing so I'll enjoy summer even more.

Another thing I am going to miss is the ice cream. I am a huge sucker for everything ice creamy and the US of A has every taste you can imagine (including the ones you didn't want to imagine, but let's not go there). Mmmmmmm...

But the aspect I'll miss most of all is probably just Chicago. Downtown, Hyde Park, campus, everything is so pretty. Every time I walk back home I catch myself thinking 'I feel at home here, I can imagine myself living here'. Against all odds.

One thing about home I did not find here, though: stars. When you look up at the sky at night, there are no stars. Or, let me rephrase that: there are stars but you can actually count them. There's like 4. Sometimes 6, when you're lucky and keep gazing long enough. Back home, especially in my backyard (meaning the graveyard behind my house), the black and blue sky is filled with them. They're drawing pictures in the sky and I can't even count the times I've seen one of them fall. I miss wishing on a star.

Don't think I'm heartless for only talking about things I'd miss or am missing. I will miss the people here terribly, just as I miss my friends and family back home. But that's only obvious. For both: This is not goodbye, it's 'catch you later'!

green green, everything's green (and drunk)

St Paddy's Day. The day when the whole city is covered in a green coat and smells of beer. When you see herds of tottering Americans pretend they are in fact Irish ("Hey man, I'm at least one sixteenth Irish"), probably because they think being American will not get you laid. The fact that St. Patrick Day might get you there, has probably more to do with the rivers of alcohol than with the proclaimed Irishness.

Anyway...some IHouse friends of mine and me went downtown because the city has spent millions to create some bio-organic colouring, green of course, to give the Chicago river a new look. And actually, it was pretty impressive: a big part of the river turned bright green in a couple of minutes. And I didn't see any three-eyed fish jump out of the water yet, so maybe it is not as bad for the environment as it looked. (pictures coming up)

The parade that followed the dyeing of the river green (god, I love resultatives) was pretty lame, but it's a parade, what did we expect? So the majority of girls in our group dragged the boys along on their shopping trip and lost them as we were going. This was actually the first time I really went shopping downtown and in one fell swoop I found (almost) all of my presents. The only problem now will be to fit everything in my luggage next week...Oh my, next week...Let's chill today!

Look what I learned!

Again, there's a list. Because it's faster for me to write. Because - admit it - you prefer it to long bulks of texts filled with stories and non-adventures. Because we all want structure in our lives, even when everything is in fact the chaos we love. Because we don't always want to get too philosophical, especially not on a blog and especially not right now.

1. A butterface. Sounds cute, but is the exact opposite. Can be hot if you don't look up. Cannot be used for guys, though (dicit Niko).

2. Winter ain't over 'till it's over. That is to be taken literally. I'm coming back when it's really summer here, see what that's like. Or, can anyone send me a tourist visa?

3. Language is not to be taken literally. What people say is mostly not what they mean. Maybe that is why I prefer ellipsis...

4. When someone who's drunk says "let's climb up the roof", take it literally. They don't mean "let's go up some flat roof or balcony that might be there", they really mean"let's climb out the window and up the roof". Which is not always a bad idea, it might be nice in the sun. But it definitely is when they're drunk.

5. Tea is never tea. It's sweets and salty snacks. And wine. And beer. Loads of. Can be vodka or that very strong Greek drink I forget the name of. But never tea. (hence previous bullet)

6. Some U of C slogans (apart from the one quoted on this blog already "Where fun comes to die"): "University of Chicago...
...where the only thing that goes down on you is your GPA."
...where the men all look like Woody Allen, and the women do too."
...if it were easy, it would be your mum."
...Hell does freeze over."
...where the squirrels are more aggressive than the guys."
...where the squirrels are cuter than the girls."
...I don't mind getting laid, because the U of C is fucking me over anyway."
...it's like unprotected sex: you're glad you got in, but sorry you came."
...our ivory tower is bigger than yours."
...the limit of sex as it goes to the UofC is zero."
...the level of Hell Dante forgot."
...if I wanted an A, I would have gone to Harvard."

7. Words I want to pick up:
- word
- ish
- peeps
- psh

8. Words I didn't want to pick up at all but did anyway:
- like
- awesome
- come on (said in my own special way)
- some dirtier expressions not fit for public blogs

After writing up what I learned and realizing it's not that much, I'm wondering whether I wanna stay longer so that I can learn more before going back, or whether I wanna leave not to waste more time. Hmmmm...

hold back!

Guys, I'm not really staying! No-one should freak out; I was just playing with the idea. I never seriously considered not taking that plane home in three weeks. Anyone who read the first reaction carefully (yes Luis, that's yours) knows I couldn't stay even if I wanted to: my damn visa expires. :-) And if I ever want to come back (which I do) I have to keep on pretending I'm an innocent little girl.

Apart from that, staying here sounds very appealing. I meet very cool new peeps (yes, I love that word) every day, especially at I-House and our very linguistics department, and every time the newest very cool new person asks me 'so how long will you be here for?' I realize I have to answer a smaller and smaller number of days. That is worrying. Luckily modern society has ways to keep in touch.

So no, I'm not staying. Yes, I will be home again, attending your parties, cheering you up on bad days and eating your food, from March 25th. One more reason why I decided it's better to go home is that I finally discovered something I don't like dealing with anymore. Something that's not as trivial as the salty/way too sweet food in restaurants. I can 'produce food' well enough to overcome that one. It's not even the snow or the cold (sorry, Chicagoans, I like it). The coming spring can do away with those anyway. It's the fact that it is harder to fully trust people here. Wait no, it's not harder, it's just wiser not to. And as I'm not wise, I'm often screwed by general hypocrisy. "No, I'm not actually your best friend, although I may act like I am. I'm just a mere vague acquaintance". (No reactions like "oh what happened?" please, because nothing did. It's a general attitude)

Peeps (jeej), I'm coming home.