Chicago, Chicago

Chicago is this magic place that has buses and train systems. Yes, train systemS. There is the CTA for inner-city travel. There is also the Metra for city to suburb travel. Coming from Tennessee, it is sometimes hard to wrap my mind around a city that has all these options for public transportation. It's very cool.

I figured out the train systems easily enough. I've done subways in a few other cities, including Barcelona, where all the signs were in Catalan. The Metra has a book of schedules, but it is quite easy to navigate from South Chicago to the city. No problems there.

Today, I venture forth to figure out the CTA bus system. I have never figured out a bus system. And it IS for lack of trying. I've always driven or taken the train. But I'm going to be a bus person here in the Windy City, so I need to do this today. Valerie starts taking the train to Holy Cross tomorrow. I, Thursday. We're not entirely last minute.

I had somehow decided a good while back that with this plethora of public transportation, I would never ever have to drive in Chicago. I would take buses and trains and maybe my housemates would drive me around once in awhile, but never would I have to brave the big city traffic.

That lasted about a week and a half.

Sunday, I drove four blocks to go rent a movie (Bowling for Columbine- see it). Monday, I drove three and a half blocks to get some tortillas and tomatoes. Just now, I drove all the way to the north side of the city to drop Michael off at his orientation retreat. But on Friday, I will hopefully be able to use the bus to pick him up.

So far, the driving is not as bad as it is in Murfreesboro, which was designed not on a square grid like Chicago, but on a series of circles and triangles that seem to induce gridlock and insanity. I've had no problems driving those three times. We've almost been hit by a few cars while Phil was driving, so I know that there are people in Chicago who sometimes like to pretend they're driving in England and that everyone ELSE is on the wrong side of the road.

Another thing to consider about Chicago is the smog. I've witnessed very little of this phenomenon in person. But the first day we got here, as John drove us around the city, I had to notice that the sky was just not right. It was this icky yellow-grey color. And from afar, the buildings in the Loop were not a tangled mass of independent structures. It was a single lump of murky water colored city, separated from that awful sky by a skyline that was fuzzy at best.

In Tennessee, when the line on the horizon between city and sky is that hazy, it's because it is raining on the horizon. But once in the Loop, there was no rain. You look up and the sky is a hazy blue-ish, like it was painted there by a blind person who had long ago been told what sky looks like, and was only pretty sure of which colors were which. I decided that all of the pictures I had ever seen of the Chicago skyline had either been a) a hoax, or b) taken in 1962. John swore to me that the sky did look normal most times. But I wondered if I should try not to breathe.

I believe it has something to do with the heat. Phil swears it's not pollution, but moisture in the air. Whatever it is, it was a full week before the temperature dropped and the sky was clear. There were a few glorious days when things were cool and breezy and normal looking. But the heat has come back, and this morning, as I drove through the city, Michael and I both awed at the murkiness above.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I have also officially had Chicago-style stuffed pizza, and man is it good.