First Chicago Things First: TV, Toilet Paper and a Personal Trainer

First, for those who are waiting - photos of the apartment will appear here when there is something more to take pictures of than just white walls. So far, what is outside our new home will have to do.

For example, this balcony right in front of our living room window serves as a perfect windmill. You can see the speed and direction of the wind first thing in the morning. Great stuff! Other good things the apartment has include several walk-ins, a gas cooker, a washing machine and a dishwasher. The latter, as all other gadgets around here, are very loud. So when you are using it together lets say with the vent, YOU HAVE TO SPEAK IN A VERY LOUD VOICE.

Anyway, Clerg started school yesterday and I had my own date with the windy city. I am not very fond of the idea of being a housewife, I thought I would rather try to be a dream wife, heh. (In German the word game is more elegant from Hausfrau to Traumfrau). However, this job also requires the occasional hunting-gathering so I set off with a shopping list for our four walls. First things first - on my way to find toilet paper and a cutting board among other elementary things I stepped into Bloomingdales Home. There was hardly anyone else there and I got a big smile from a lady setting up Christmas decorations. I am already used to the fact that smiles like this end up in little conversations and since we both seemed to have time on our hands, I ended up explaining where Estonia was. Then she smiled at me again and said Well, welcome to our city - you are going to have a wonderful time here. How nice is that. No one in Zurich ever says something like that after they hear that yet another foreigner has arrived to live there.

I bought circa three items from our list. The thing is, everything here is so oversized that I could simply not carry more home. So one at a time. Today, for example, it was napkins` turn.

This morning I had planned to take the complementary minibus from our house to the closest Macy`s but at the time I was in the park across the street taking the above picture, the bus just drove by, not stopping. Our doorman then apologetically explained, one must stand on the pavement waiting for the bus, not somewhere in the middle of the flower beds. Also gut, by foot, then. The reason I needed to go to town for were special spandex work-out pants that, you will not believe it but yes, my personal trainer required I would wear. Linden, who is married to a Swedish lady and therefore knows Estonia very well, came in today to measure my everything there is to measure on a woman`s body including fat with a metal gripper that reminded of something a farmer might use with his cows. Our house has a fully equipped gym and during the next five weeks, I will get a one-to-one personal service to help me use it and lose all that extra fat. We`ll see.

I also got the TV running and us a new electricity account, which is quite a funny story, but it is already nine o`clock in the evening and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Below some more pics.

Our living room window.

Schön, gäu.

Lakeside.

Clerg`s photo of the cereal shelf for obvious reasons.