Olympic Fever

This city has Olympics fever. The vote is tomorrow and no one can talk about anything else. It will be super sad when they don’t get it.

I watched more of the news than usual this morning because I woke up with a cold.

That’s right, I’ve been here a grand total of four days and I already have a cold.

Also fun, is the fact that I was invited to a Young Professionals Happy Hour this evening and now I feel like crap and don’t want to try and find something cute to wear.

As previously mentioned, my wardrobe isn’t really appropriate for this city. I don’t have anything warm and the professional aspect is seriously lacking. So I spend a bit of time today shopping and found a few things super on sale. Yay for Macy’s rewards!!

The Happy Hour was hosted by CS, my sorority friend from Monday, at this cute little bar called Maeve, which means “she who intoxicates.”

This place is exactly how I see northern bars. It was cute and snazzy but not pretentious.

There was a mix of people, all around my age (no cute unattached men sadly) but I talked to a lot of the ladies and found out a few of them were in the same sorority as CS and I – ones that she didn’t even know before this evening.

CS’s friend SB was also incredibly nice. She is unbelievably smart and dedicated – working on two graduate degrees at the same time. I wish I had that kind of drive. SB found out I was new to town and invited me to hang out with them tomorrow evening as well and proceeded to write me a page long detailed list of directions on how to there.

I am just amazed at how helpful people are in this city. I’m sure there are exceptions, but so far I am impressed.

After the HH had ended, S had to head home but CS and I went in search of food. We wound up in Wrigleyville in the rain and walked into the first place that looked open. Again, with the niceness, the “bouncer” checking id’s informed us that they did in fact serve food, but if we really wanted to sit down and have something good, it wasn’t going to be in that packed bar. He gave us directions to Bar Louie, which is close by, and we headed on our way. Oh, and he was in fact totally cute too.

Walking back to my car, it rained even harder and the wind picked up as we were relatively close to the lake. CS kept telling me I was brave for wanting to move up there. And I just keep thinking how happy I am to have made friends with such great people up here so quickly and that being brave has nothing to do with it. That it’s people like her and SB taking a chance on me that’s really brave!