CRAZY FUN

Day 10
Yesterday, Tuesday, was tons of fun!

I got up bright and early myself, and went down to Hyde Park around the University of Chicago. I saw Obama's Chicago residence, or at least the tiny bit of it not covered by tall trees. There was security as well, so I couldn't get close to it. I went to the Oriental Institute Museum, which has an amazing collection of stuff from the ancient Near East (Babylonians, Persians, Nubians, Egyptians, etc..). Afterwards, I was just walking around campus and the parks around it when my friend Jessie called me back. I stayed with her last time I was in Chicago, and we had tons of fun, so I knew no matter what we did, it would be tons of fun again.

I took the train to where she lived, then we took her car to apartment hunting. She got these people off Craigslist, and was hoping to get something around Logan Square. All the houses we went to see were pretty "interesting" in their own ways.
__House #1: We went to see T first who was a single (not otherwise relevent, except he kept mentioning it in email to Jessie) man in his 30s, who had a super nice apartment that he designed himself. He was a bit intense and neurotic, and his laugh was ....... interesting. Jessie decided that she probably couldn't share a living space with someone like that, and we moved on to the next house.
__House #2: Next house was inhabited by P and T, two guys who promised that if they had a girl living with them, their place would be more clean. Both of them were stoners. The place was very bare, and the guys were more someone you'd want to party with than live with. The verdict was in: NO WAY.]
__House #3: This house gave out lots of bad vibes before we even went inside. Jessie's phone died, there was no free parking on the street, and there was a gate on the front that had no door bell so we had to scream hoping they would hear us. Somehow luckily, they did and came down and let us in. T and M were two girls who were still in college, but didn't want to live in dorms. Their place was very cute, and they seemed like two girls, but that place just called out NO to us for some reason. We moved on....
__House #4: This house had a SUPER CHEAP ROOM. It was very close to Logan Square. In fact, we were at a gas station charging our cellphones when they called Jessie, and we were ONLY A BLOCK AWAY. It was the first good sign. It was also very close to Jessie's friend's house, which was sign #2. The inside was a definite fixer upper, but for $215 a month before utilities, I would totally take that then go wild at Ikea if it were me. Before house #3, we went to this cafe on Logan Square, New Wave Coffee, and one of the roommates at house #4 was in one of the photos from the exhibit at the cafe. I asked if it was her, and she said yes! Sign #3 that it was good. They also had a roommate named "Release" who was Mexican as we were told, and lived in a space behind the fridge that was covered by some wood panels and a big lock on it. Everything we heard about this guy from the other roommates was pretty legendary. Seems they had 5 people living there, and 2 were moving out, so they needed 2 more. Basically, the only bad things were that the roommates seemed a little too dirty (not them personally, their living space), the place seemed a bit shady with the law, and she didn't know if she could trust her valuables there. Anyways, if it were me, I'd wanna live there for a few months, just for the experience!

After all that, we went to the exhibit opening at this one Japanese restaurant for an artist Jessie was interning for. We got some free sushi and free drinks, then after a few hours went back to their place. They live in this building that's full of art studios, and some people just rent studios and others live there. Jessie's friend was working on something in one of the other studios, so we visited him for a few hours. Jessie painted a bit, and I mixed her paints for her. I got back to Becky's parents' around 1:15am.

A GOOD DAY! Can't wait to see Jessie again today.