Here we are. finally in the windy city. and it is windy, indeed. the great lake Michigan was frozen when we arrived. a bit. but the sun is shinning. a lot.
beginning: we were flying Iberia, berlin-madrid-chicago. their system was broken, meaning they were filling out our boarding passes and bag-tags by hand. in all of that mess they didn't find the time or will to complain about 10 kg overweight. then delay. in madrid running to get the flight to chicago. two of us, last passengers. after long, 9 hours-flight, horrible food, 3 movies and quite friendly staff (compared to air france, which is the worst ever!!!) we finally arrived at our final destination. but not all of our bags. of course. maja's both bags were there (hi, hi) but boris' two and his precious bike not. but they arrived the next day.
we stayed at andrei's place, katarina's boyfriend, for the first three days. but, since things work here extremely fast, on friday we looked for flats already. saw two and took one. in hyde park, and that is a part of town where university of chicago is. a bit outside, but it takes 20 mins by bus to be downtown. we'll show the pics later. soooooooooooooooooooooo, now we have OUR place to stay, size basically similar to our old flat in berlin, wooden floor (parkett), small sleeping room, big living room, big kitchen, ok bathroom. and something one could call a balcony. it is actually a back entrance, which goes directly into kitchen, but we have our space there where we could put two chairs and some plants and flowers. and it is a south side!!! alles altbau. the only problem is that our flat is so empty, and so white! we bought some basic stuff, but we need time, and a car, of course, to go to ikea! but one actually doesn't need a car here. public transport is quite ok. oh, and our janitor (hausmeister) is croatian, rajko. actually. almost all janitors in hyde park are croatian!!!
that's it for now. this is maja writing. i think boris should do our next report. and i hope my english will get better. ich benutze fast nur deutsch hier. mit boris, sein chef, seine frau, andrei.
am sonntag habe ich zum ersten mal geweint seitdem wir hier sind.