Sweet Home Chicago

A little bit of some skyline as seen from an Amtrak trip.

As I was finishing up with grad school and just before my husband and I got married, we had the discussion... where do we want to live? We had of course LOVED where we did undergrad at Illinois State University (Go Redbirds!) in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. We also LOVED Omaha, Nebraska where I did my grad schooling.  PLUS, we were thinking... do we want to try something completely out-there for the next couple years before we settle settle down? Like... Hawaii! Alaska! Seattle! Ultimately, we really didn't want to be too far from our families and we wanted a little "bigger" city life than what we were used to- so 3hrs (more with traffic) from our hometown of Rock Island, Illinois (Quad Cities) was... wait for it... CHICAGO!
We thought maybe the big city for a year or two before deciding if that's what we wanted for the longer run or just for a taste, etc.  The day after we got back from our honeymoon, I had two interviews and within a week had accepted a position in Chicago! Luckily we had friends that let us crash with them for the month-long back and forth process of trying to find a place. BUT in the end, we feel we got a steal of a deal for our place in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood. We are walking distance to the grocery store, wonderful restaurants (even one with our fave QC style pizza), 10 minute bus trip to be in the heart of downtown, close to transportation, and near our friends! We love it! Going on year 3 in the same place! We say we will re-evaluate every so often to make sure we are still loving it here- but we are feeling kinship with Chicago that is still going strong!

But even though we are going on year 3...
Ever notice when you live somewhere, you end up not doing some of the cool touristy things? Thank goodness for visitors! Gets us around the city! This weekend and next weekend we have visitors, my parents followed by best friends, Nikki and Nathan, from Omaha! Beyond excited for our visitors and for going out and doing some exploring in this lovely city of ours! Don't know the plans yet but it will definitely be a mix of touristy, museum-ing?, food and drink, shopping, and nice relaxed hanging out time.
In honor of our kinship with our home of Chicago and our upcoming touristy adventures with family and friends... here are 51 reasons Chicago will ruin you for anywhere else! :)

Have a good weekend... I will!

xo jess xo