I've had it!

Just ordered DSL!

It should be here on April 5th. Just six more days of painfully slow page loads and blog post pictures taking all day to upload. Hooray!

So here's what I've thrown at AT&T so far:

I started out by making a $85 deposit that I still have no idea about how it will be refunded. Then about $47 for the setup of my phone line. It'll be about $42 for my basic phone plan that doesn't yet include the local calls it took for me to dial into 550access, my current 56k online provider. This one costs $5,50, as the name suggests. So now, with DSL, I'm out another $49,99 for the modem, which it will cost another $13 to ship plus $30 for the DSL access itself. That adds up to about $200 for something Nema and Borat had instantly and for free when they came here - acceptable internet access.

By the way, my paper asking to share internet access with someone else that I hung up downstairs was greeted with a post-it stuck on it that stated that this was illegal. Sometimes, this country still surprises me.

Ratner Athletics Center

No pictures today!

Only noteworthy thing I did today was my first time going to Ratner's.

The manager recognized me and even knew my name (for those of you who know it - that's quite a feat for an American!) and signed me in without problems. He gave me a lock but I did have to come back to get an explanation how it works - it wasn't quite like my locker back in high school and even that was a while back. But I did get the hang of it, got changed and first went to the "rotunda", that's the circle of exercising machines actually overlooking the lobby (you can see parts of it on the pictures of Ratner below). Almost every one of the thirty machines there has either an individual TV (yay, maybe I will get to watch 24 here!) or a screen in front of it, that makes riding the exercise bike feel more like a video game than a workout.

After about a mile on the treadmill I wanted to explore more of the place and went downstairs to the weight room. I trained a bit and then felt an itch to try if I could handle a basketball after 7 years of not having touched one.

I got my driver's license - the girl at the reception trading balls for IDs didn't seem too bewildered by it - and received my ball. It seemed small. The gym that I had seen people play basketball in when I was coming in now suddenly had a volleyball net and girls with volleyballs trickling in. Bugger .. the schedule next to the gym said "varsity volleyball" for this time slot. But the schedule also said "auxiliary gym". After a bit of wandering around I found the main gym which of course, also had six basketball baskets.

Not feeling ready to participate in the game right away, I shot some hoops by myself and was surprised to find that it actually seems like riding a bike.

After close to an hour on the court I had to get going, since Trillian was ever more likely to arrive back from her trip to town that she did today. I made a 15-minute stop in their sauna, but even though their thermometer showed 210°, it felt like no more than a warm summer breeze in there. Oh well.

The place rocks anyway.

Hope I get to go there during the coming weeks.

Bulls

This morning, CS informed us that she'd have time to show us around the hospital and our wards today after all. And then Borat called and asked me whether I wanted to come with him to the secretary we all would have to visit by Monday. He apparently had called her before but she had reacted rather impatiently as he reported.

That meant I had to find an air pump to be able to use my bike. Naturally there was none in the laundry room downstairs where the bikes are kept in this place. Naturally, the one-dollar-store didn't have any either. Naturally, the gas station's pump did not have a barometer so I couldn't really be sure not to instantly blow up my tires. All that was left in the little time I had left before having to meet Borat was that ridiculously overpriced hardware store on 55th that I actually had to leave $11 at to get an air pump.

Oh well. With pumped-up tires I cruised towards the hospital with my one-speed bike that is way too small for me and met Borat. We did meet up with the secretary but that was just about as much use as calling her. We did find out that we couldn't expect to get a student ID from her and even with the hospital ID she seemed kind of reluctant to make any steps towards setting things in motion with the nurse who apparently was in charge of them. When we asked about the Ratner Athletics Center that was primarily for students that Borat and I did want to sign up for she did say though that we should try and sign up anyway.

We would try that, but only after we had met CS at noon in the hospital.

She took us up to the fifth floor, where the apparently recently-built residents "hall" was - a tiny room crammed with people in white coats sitting at and hacking into computers. We left our jackets there and followed CS on one of the wards, where she explained the computers and patient records to us. No rocket science there, really. Interestingly though, even though we were on a normal cardiology ward and not the ICU, every patient was hooked up to monitoring that was displayed at the nursing station.

Other than that, we were only introduced to one fellow resident. The rest of the staff gave us sometimes curious, sometimes irritated looks - at least that's how it appeared to me. We'll see if that changes once we wear our terribly demeaning white coats as well as shirts with ties.

After leaving Nema and CS behind with an attending that she was supposed to present a patient to for practice (Borat and I aren't scheduled to do that until next week, when we have already started our rotations), Borat and I went to the Ratner Athletics Center and after a nice chat with the manager we were allowed to become members. Not as regular students, which would have been free, but as non-registered students which came to $60 for the two months we are here. That's a very good deal I think - in Germany I am used to paying much more for much smaller facilities.

After the sign-up process we met Nema on the street by chance and she came over to my place to eat. Borat still had to do something before we would meet again at my place to go out. Because today was the day that the Chicago Bulls were to be squashed by the Detroit Pistons and that we - thanks to yours truly :D - had tickets for.

But I realized I hadn't brought gym clothes since I hadn't expected to find such a nice and affordable gym right across the street from my apartment. So I asked Trillian, Nema and Borat whether we could leave half an hour earlierto re-visit yet again the Bestest Store in the World (tm).After I had bought two pairs of sweat pants and swimming trunks (yes, Ratner's has a pool!) we returned to the L-tracks, where the view was beautiful today,and headed east, past strange places.(I wonder what they treat .. actually feminism? Do they make women better people by changing their sex? Heheh.)

A few more blocks to the south-west was our goal - the United Center! Yes! United! The people that gave me Filet Mignon and a massaging-chair on the flight here :D .Yeah, we did want jerseys. Then again, we did also like our ability to afford food.Which Nema and Borat did.I actually missed my chance to get food because we were waiting for this guy.He was going to draw a picture of us. For free. Compliments of the Bulls. Of course I'd get something for free at the UNITED center. I love those guys.

They also gave all four of us free Chicago Bulls umbrellas. I have no idea how I will transport that thing home but it's a very cool souvenir.The guy actually took an entire hour to draw us.Really. An hour. We missed the start of the game, because we were still sitting there with him.But after a short chat with him - he wanted to practice his not-so-shabby German with us afterwards - we did make it all the way up to our seats.

They were "cheap". Only $46 per person. So they gave you a great .. overview.But it was OK. You were actually still able to follow the game from here.They really made much of a show out of it, including showing random people in the crowd, multiple sponsored lottery-style events, the mascot trying to score with his back to the basket from center court in order to win $3000 for someone, the InflataBulls and of course the luvaBulls, the Cheerleaders.The game itself was quite exciting in the end actually, as you can see from the scoreboard below. 81 to 81 in the fourth quarter with 9.8 seconds to go.I do have a video of the final three minutes that followed (still three free-throws and a time-out to go :) ), but uploading that to youtube is currently not something I'm willing to try with this line.

The ride back using buses was surprisingly easy and unfrightful.

Guided tour and Highway to Hell

We went to get one of the guided tours around the U of C campus today. There are actually two per day, 10:30 am and 1:30 pm on every weekday. If you thought this was hard to believe, then get this: there were actually about 40 people taking the tour with 5 guides on this totally normal Wednesday morning.

At the totally crowded admissions office, where the tour started, they asked around loudly "so, who of you guys is actually a senior in high school?". No hands were raised. "Oh, so you're all juniors? Oh boy. Oh, err, any transfer students?" I raised my hand halfway and said "kinda". They asked me to have "my tour guide" bring me back to the office after the tour.

Outside the door, we split up into the five groups and a girl from - was it South Carolina?, she was a first year (oh great), started walking backwards in front of us and talking and talking.This is what the insides of the "main quadrangle" on campus here look like.They have a small chapel here that U of C students actually seem to get a discount at when they get married. Scary.

We also entered in some hallways around classrooms.The people you see are actually in the next tour group.

Here, I couldn't help but digress from our tour guides' explanations to take a picture of a bulletin board on the wall. The Educational Guidelines for Sexual Consent :DAs you can imagine, I was appalled to read that "According to the Illinois Criminal Sexual Assault Statute consent cannot be given when any person is intoxicated, unconscious or asleep". Whaaa?

What's worse: "Giving someone drugs or alcohol with the intent to impair his or her judgment or make them unconscious violates the Illinois law." Huh? So what exactly are those 40-ish-year-old dudes doing buying those future trophy-wife barely-legal college chicks drinks? That's illegal! And I thought only Germans had a tendency to over-regulate things.They did have nothing but pretty buildings in the main quadrangles and what our guide told us about initiation ceremonies and lots of other fun and cheesy traditions that we do need to introduce in Germany as well.

But I doubt that this has a chance - it feels like pretty much everything around here is upside down when it comes to university. The tour that first year student gave us felt more like a sales pitch. Even when she told us that she does feel secure on the campus. Yes she does. And those big poles with the red panic button that say "emergency" in big blue letters are there to make you even more secure. She said that you could even hit them while running from your predator. By the sequence in which you hit on the buttons the police will be able to tell where you're running. So cool! The little girl's mom that was with us started hyperventilating. Anyway. It still felt like that tour guide was trying to sell the university to us. Which I suppose she was. The university here gets a huge deal of money through tuition so there actually is a competition between universities trying to attract as many students as possible.

Well, she didn't quite convince me to pay tuition.

Later, back in the admissions office, I explained my status and asked whether they saw a chance that I'd get a student ID. The nice lady explained that the medschool really was quite detached from the rest of the university and that I would have to check with the "secretaries over there". I did want the student ID for several reasons .. for one you get into a lot of stuff much cheaper, you get into frat and sorority parties at all, you get public transportation around campus, you get free access to the Ratner athletics facilities, free wireless on campus, access to libraries (yeah, I know, what for) and to student eating places (ah-HAH!). So we would have to check with the secretaries later.

First, Trillian and I checked out the Co-Op book store our guide had mentioned in the tour. That one was fun. It was underground.I don't know what text book rush is but it sounds scary.Trillian really loved this place.Images can't really convey the crammed atmosphere this place had, where books were stacked up to the low ceiling, even between pipes, and shelves were individually constructed to hold a maximum of books in the twisted little rooms.The place was pretty big though. I for one couldn't make out any kind of order though in which the books were arranged. I believe finding what you're looking for in here was a mere game of luck.One section apparently contained the books required for certain courses at the university and were conveniently arranged with course numbers. Service is everything over here.Walking back home, we passed the fraternity houses that had banners hanging out. There was actually an announcement for a "dirty doctors and naughty nurses party" on Friday whose proceeds would benefit doctors without borders supposedly. Unfortunately, U of C ID would be required there, too. Oh well.Back at home, I needed some calories since I hadn't had breakfast.When I had eaten this little pizza, I felt strong enough to make more food (heheh) for the return invitation of CS and BT who arrived at 6.When they arrived, we feasted and had a nice conversation even though CS was post-call.The food cleared out nicely.Right before the other two girls had arrived, a UPS man had been at the door. I was in the kitchen busy at the stove, so Trillian went down (our door buzzer doesn't work). We didn't know it was a UPS man. We expected the girls. So Trillian was surprised to find the UPS man with this package.A beauty, eh? Cleverly, the guy made Trillian sign for the package before he showed it to her. When she alarmedly ran up to me to get me to look at it, I saw nothing but the back of the UPS guy running across the street to his van getting in and driving off.

I wonder what they do to these packages to make them look so terribly worn.The inside wasn't that much better off. The back fender was pretty nastily twisted and buckled and there was a huge scratch on the bike itself. But other than that the parts of the bike seemed kind of usable.Yes, "parts" of the bike. Assembly required.So I went at it.Maybe half an hour later, I was sitting on my 1-speed beach cruiser bike.While it IS pretty, it's much too small for me (but the biggest/only size they had for male adults .. this was the USA, right?) and even after extensive bending of the fenders, there's still something apparently rubbing on the front wheel.

Oh well. Now I just need to find something to get air into those wheels.

Field Museum

Wait a second. Me? A museum? I can see anyone who has even remotely met me before shaking their head now in disbelief. I understand.

Of course I didn't want to go to a museum. Hello? We were walking towards the Shedd Aquarium- the biggest indoor aquarium in the world! Yeah, the head-shaking now turns into mere eyebrow-raising. An aquarium .. big deal. But you have to admit it does sound vaguely interesting. They're supposed to have sharks and everything.

Alas, despite it being a perfectly normal working day during the week and even before noon, the line in front of the aquarium went on .... and on ..
.. and I'm sure you can see where I'm heading.
Away from here.

So the aquarium obviously was an interesting place but interesting for way too many people.

Guess what is right next to the aquarium and doesn't have any line at all .. And - probably because I hadn't been to a museum in a long time - I couldn't remember why exactly I didn't go into museums.

So after minimal fiddling with the lease of my apartment (to prove I'm a Chicago "resident") and after starting to explain that we had no U of C ID "yet" (like I'm ever gonna get one .. heheh), we would be happy to show our German student IDs though, the woman at the "guest relations" desk of the museum quickly gave us the student discount and got rid of us. It seems that if you go to that much trouble to make up such an incredible story like that you're visiting students from another country and not having proper ID "yet" - you deserve the discount anyway. She wanted to see neither lease nor German student ID.

Once inside, I found that the place held some promise for me after all ..Yum.

And then, there was an exhibition that supposedly was time-sensitive or something, since it said on our tickets that we were scheduled to go there at 12:30. So we did.This did look somewhat interesting.And these Americans seem to know that museums are generally boring and they do try hard to keep you interested. And as we all know, the things that sell best are sex,cute little funny animations (lots of them actually)and of course, murder/death/kills.
Lots of them also.But hey, they really did put a lot of effort into this exhibition.And who would have thought - some of this stuff was actually interesting. Some.And those comedians/museum geeks really went all out .. "Don't blink - you might miss these tetrapods that lived only during the Triassic Period." Haha! That's funny stuff.Needless to say, by now, I was bored. And it all came back to me .. why I avoided museums where I could. They were boring! How could I forget that?But Americans really are something else. Right outside the exhibition was this. At first I thought they had some really lifelike robots in there. But no, these were actual people, one really old guy at the microscopes and a considerably younger one discussing apparently something about dates, since they were gesturing towards and fiddling with a calendar on the wall. "Is this a real lab?" the panel reads below the probably one-way mirror that formed their walls. And the answer was: "Absolutely! It's one of three labs here at The Field Museum in which vertebrate fossils are prepared."Freaky stuff!

"Do Not Knock on the Glass!" the paper on the wall read. "We are working on very fragile animal fossils from all over the world. These bones are very important research specimens, and can be easily damaged. Preparing fossils requires patience and careful attention. Please help us out, and do not try to distract the preparators." Uh - sure. But could I maybe pet or feed them?Right along those lines is this Native American making a Totem Pole on displayand this woman knitting away for everyone to see, comment on, critique and throw their kleenexes at. Weird.
Anyway. In between, by the way, we had gone into a temporary exhibition about the work and life of Mendel that was also beautifully done and interesting, alas, top secret. As in, no pictures. Oh well, less for me to upload.

The one "big" attraction this Museum boasts is Sue. Sue's head is depicted below. It's the bigger one of the two. No, I mean the one on the right. Kidding! Don't kill me!Anyway, that head above belongs to the skeleton below.It's a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Or rather it was one. One bone-digger called Sue found the first few of her bones so they named the big Rex after her.She is kind of pretty I have to admit. And they seem to think so, too.So far unwilling to forfeit the rest of the day so easily that we had paid the admission fee for, Trillian insisted on going to the exhibition on the "Ancient Americas" and "Ancient Egypt". I will try and bore you only minimally with the "highlights".

Like "in Spanish only" - does anyone else find that weird?Also in this exhibition, they did get cute with us.But after the Ancient Americas and on my way to Egypt I was just about ready to lie down next to herand have someone say this:But there was some fun to be had in the Egyptian exhibition after all. For example this thing:When I looked through the hole, I first saw this.A lightbulb? Wonderful indeed. OK, here is what I guess you were actually supposed to see.Just ignore the huge bulb at 12 o'clock. So much work and attention to detail and they find no better way to light it all than to put a bulb in your face. Oh well - I won't be curator of this museum any time soon luckily.

So we looked at Trillian as an "Ancient Egyptian" before even she got bored and we headed out.Of course they'd intercept us right before the main entrance with another huge pile of merchandising products.Full shopping mode.When we made it outside, Trillian was harshly introduced to Chicago weather and its extreme unpredictability. While a T-shirt had seemed more than enough in the morning sun, Petrus had in the meanwhile done a one-eighty.One look at the Hyde Park Shopping Center sign expressed in numbers, what we had felt right outside the doors of the Museum. 4°C. Fridge temperature.