Day 1 of ?? in Chicago

Well, we're definitely on edge with everything being up in the air right now, but we're making the most of it while we're here in Chicago. I've never been and Rob has only been once before, so it's been fun for us to explore. After Cleveland, it's nice to be in an actual city again -- makes us feel at ease. Chicago reminds me of a nicer, cleaner New York, not as much soul and not as much attitude (in fact, people are weirdly nice here), but I'll forgive them for that.

Our good friend Christina helped us come up with a good first day itinerary. We started with a bag of popcorn from Garrett's, the Chicago blend of caramel and cheddar. Pretty solid breakfast.

Then we brought it over to Millennium Park and listened to a live orchestra. Such a beautiful setting! If this were New York, they'd charge $20 to get in or else you'd never even find a spot. But here, there was so much space!

The park also had this really awesome waterfall for the kids, with images of Chicago faces projected on one of the walls. Plus there's a huge, beautiful garden, the "bean", and a new bridge they're building that will connect to a new park on the other side of the highway.

Then we headed over to Navy Pier, gorged on some fried dough...

.. hung out for awhile waiting for Rob to bring me new shoes because of course my sandals broke...

Had a pretty good hot dog from Portillo's (love that poppy bun!)...

And took the pooch to a giant wide open dog run way out in the suburbs, which we realized (after we hopped the fence) that it was members only. Oops. But she got some good exercise. It's hard keeping a dog active on a road trip, and finding gems like these is pretty awesome. We had a great time running through the fields together. Now, to get her to hunt geese or ducks or something, because after we pay for these car repairs I think we'll be dependent on foraging til Washington. 

We'll get a better vehicular diagnosis tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed.

I'm Leaving NYC!

There it is! After seven inspiring, energized, youthful 20-something years of Brooklyn living, I'm leaving the city. Fittingly, we'll get in the car (the car we have yet to buy) and head West to rural Pullman Washington the month I turn 30. This blog is intended to keep me grounded as I make the move, share a few bits of knowledge as I go through the process, keep friends and family in the loop, and to remind myself that this is actually happening, despite the fact that I haven't told my job and I go through the day acting like everything's normal. I'm pretending so well, I'm almost starting to fool myself! 

But things aren't normal. I got engaged 3 days ago. I got a puppy 9 days ago. Today, I sent in an application for a duplex 2-bedroom apartment in Washington that costs less than half of our rent in Greenpoint. Then I had two phone interviews for potential freelance work. It's all very overwhelming and frankly kind of exhausting. But more importantly, it's pretty exciting.

But before I move into the next phase toward rural life, there are a few things I need to do to wrap things up here nicely. Thus, an NYC bucket list:

• Visit the cloisters
• Go to a Nets game
• See the old City Hall subway stop
• Watch a movie at the Loewe's theater in NJ
• Eat dinner at Eleven Madison Park
• Try Lombardi's pizza
• See Once on Broadway
• Gorge at Dinosaur BBQ

Last night, two other items were drunkenly added to the list:

• Steal the "T" from the Black Rabbit sign
• Crash a wedding at the Polonaise.

I'm guessing we won't get to most of these. I bet we will not do the last two.

But the good news is, this past week we knocked off two other items: go to Yankee Stadium during opening week and head upstate to zipline at Hunter Mountain. 

It's gonna be quite a ride. Here we go!