Writer’s block

It was a very good year

Celebrating one year of living in Chicago, and making a list of what to do next

By Jeremy Schnitker

If there’s one thing that stands out about my first year in Chicago, it’s that it went by extremely fast. It doesn’t at all seem like I moved here from Omaha a year ago. I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun.

It’s been a great year, and I’ve done a lot: I’ve been to music festivals I had never attended before, discovered new favorite bars, learned about architecture, etc. But as much as I’ve done this year, there are still some things that I haven’t been able to experience. Here’s a list of the four things I love most about this city, and the six things I’ve yet to experience.

Things that I love about this city:
1.) Using public transportation and/or walking
Owning a car can be a pain in the ass, especially when gas prices are hovering around the $3 range. One of the best things about living in Chicago is that you don’t need one. Being able to hop on a train or a bus — or even better, walk — to get to wherever you need to go is preferable, especially when all it costs is $80 a month (what a monthly CTA pass will run you).

Yeah, living in this town can be expensive, but one way you can cut some serious room in the budget department is by not having a monthly car payment or insurance to worry about. You can also save some dough by not needing a membership to a health club because you’re walking everywhere. Of course, there are downsides to this, like having to wait for a bus in sub-zero temperatures or walking from the train to work against the omnipresent winter wind downtown.

2.) The anonymity
At first, the prospect of being in a big city where you don’t know anybody and nobody knows you seems frightening, but coming from a smaller town where you did know everybody and everybody did know you, I have to say it’s pretty refreshing to be able to go to the grocery store and not be forced into a trite conversation with some dude you sat next to in 10th grade social studies.

What’s nice about Chicago is that it presents a healthy balance of cordiality and big-city impudence. Sometimes, the nice random guy that smiles and says hi to you can make your day, and sometimes you just don’t want to have small talk with the lady next to you on the train. Somehow, it all seems to balance out here.

3.) The Summer
Summer comes as a savior for anybody who lives in the revolving climate of the Midwest, but for some reason, it’s just a little sweeter here. That might have to do with Chicago’s well-kept, unobstructed beachfront, its insane number of beer gardens and all the baseball (even if you don’t care for the games, the atmosphere alone is entertainment enough). If it were summer year-round here, New York and Los Angeles might be obsolete.

4.) The intangible quality of living in a major urban area
When friends from home ask what exactly makes Chicago so much better than a town like Omaha, I can’t sum it up into an easily digestible paragraph. It’s some combination of the unique architecture, the invigorating hustle and bustle, the tremendous amount of career opportunities and the fact that at almost any time on any day of the week, there’s something new to do or see that will stimulate you culturally and socially.

Things I have yet to do:
1.) Meet a celebrity
I know that Chicago isn’t Los Angeles, New York or even Miami when it comes to celebrity residents, but still, I thought I would have bumped into one of the Cusaks, Jordan, Oprah or even Vince Vaughn thus far. As it is, I’ve only had two celebrity encounters in this city. I almost literally ran into documentary filmmaker Michael Moore as he was leaving a Michigan Ave. hotel room (he’s a big man), and I think I saw Josh Groban walking in front of the Water Tower. (Disclaimer: Yes, I was very disappointed in the fact that I can actually point Josh Groban out in a crowd. The only reason I suspected it was him was the gaggle of high school girls freaking out and taking cell phone pictures with him.)

2.) Go to a swank jazz club
Maybe it’s because I’ve watched too many old movies, but I’ve always had this romantic visualization of walking down a cold, dark big-city alley bundled up in a collar-popped pea coat and stumbling into some steamy speakeasy-type jazz club. I know they exist somewhere in this city (at least I hope they do), but I have yet to see one.

3.) See Chicago from Lake Michigan
There’s a lot of great views of the city from the north, west and even the south, but I can only imagine that it’s best when viewed from a sailboat a mile or two out on the lake on a clear summer afternoon, preferably with a cocktail in hand. Anybody got a sailboat?

4.) Go to a Bears game
Don’t get my wrong, Cubs and White Sox games are great, but the sports franchise that really matters in this town is the Bears, especially now that they’ve actually got a team. I caught a glimpse of tailgating last fall, and it only whet my appetite in terms of fully experiencing the Bear phenomena. The catch of their recent success, of course, is that now it’s that much more difficult to do.

5.) Really experience the food
At first, I was going to make the food a thing I loved about this city, because seemingly every meal I have is the one of the new best meals of my life. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I have only just begun to experience all this town has to offer. There are so many restaurants here that you’d have to go out to eat three times a day every day for at least a year before you really got a grasp for this town’s culinary prowess. As it is, I eat out maybe 2-3 times a week, and too often it’s at the same places. Lets hope year No. 2 is different.

6.) Get mugged
So far, I’ve had my bike stolen and my apartment broken into, so the only logical next step is that I get jumped, considering how frequently I walk and depend on public transportation. I’m by no means looking forward to it, I just hope I don’t have my laptop and Ipod on me.

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