Getting settled in

We did leave this morning at around quarter past seven and luckily for me, BT had to make a quick stop at the hospital - THE hospital - before going to work. So she took my luggage and me along for the ride. Since the student housing office wasn't open yet anyway I followed her on the stop to my future workplace. It will come as no surprise to anyone who has remotely made my acquaintance that I immediately found my future center of the universe.

What I saw during the rest of the time I had this morning looked very nice, colorful yet elegant and the place had a nice atmosphere to it. I think it'll be fun working there.





Afterwards, BT kindly dropped me off at the student housing office, which conveniently was right across the street from my future home. I was cordially received there even though it was only 8:30 in the morning. Usually, I'd not be awake enough for this kind of joviality. Anyway, the manager handed me the key and asked me to take a look at the place before we'd sign anything at all. That was fine by me so I crossed the street, fumbled around with those half a dozen keys on the chain and finally found my way into the second floor, where my apartment number 206 was. I was greeted in the hall by a nice Croatian guy who said he was going to re-tile my bathroom and followed me into the apartment. The place looked very old but somewhat-maintained and as big as could be expected for the hefty price of around 750 quid per month.

Now here came problem number one - this "studio" had a futon without beddings, a kitchen devoid of anything in cupboards or drawers - let alone little things like hangers in the wardrobe or towels in the bathroom. So I was going to have to buy bedsheets, a blanket and at least one pillow as well as dishes and silverware. Luckily, I had been suspicious enough to bring at least two towels with me from home.

So I went back into the office and signed a heap of papers. I was too preoccupied asking myself how to transport all the stuff I'd need to my new place to actually read all the stuff I signed. I know, same old mistakes that led to huge financial losses in New York. But if I actually read all the pages-long ramblings about "lead paint" and "pest control" in there I'd still be standing in that office now. So after I signed the nice lady across the counter led me in on the fact that I had no phone service over there .. yet. She was somewhat sure that there'd be a phone jack in the wall so they kindly let me use one of their office phones to call AT&T. After about 15 minutes on hold and another 30 minutes chatting with another nice lady we agreed that I'd get the cheapest regular phone service they had, thirty-some bucks setup fee, then twelve-something a month, 3 cents per call. So far so good. Then she wanted a $85 deposit. And no, we could not do this over the phone via credit card. I would have to go to a certified dealer. Or something. Give them my money and receive a confirmation number. That'd be the currency exchange parlor on 53rd street. Whatever.

After that, the nice people at the office also let me use their internet to sign up for some of my own. When stowetel rejected my credit card numerous times I sent SMS to Germany and Detroit in vain (thanks guys, nice to be able to rely on you ;P ). When stowetel then rejected another credit card though, I was fed up and googled for another provider. They agreed with my card. So now I'd have the internet account, I'd just need to get phone service.

Now was the time then to get my stuff into the new place. Of course I didn't recognize the phone jack as such and had to have the Croatian guy call the janitor over to show it to me. But he did so nicely.

I then went out into the general direction of the closest shopping center. The first thing I found was a tiny computer store that actually seemed to have at least several years old equipment. No flatscreens, just regular old electron shooters. I bought a 6-foot phone cable there for a buck. I would need a cable like that to connect the notebook to the phone jack but I later found that this was way too short to be convenient.

Anyway, time for lunch and a belated breakfast.That was extremely yummy, have to go there again.

Next stop was a US cellular store but I was out quickly after finding out that they don't deal in SIM cards.

After having already walked several kilometers just to get to the shopping center the next stop would have to be the bike shop on 53rd. That was about a mile away again and of course it was open every day except Wednesday. I strolled back on 53rd and walked into a store with the familiar colors of T-mobile. A good talk and about 20 minutes later I had a US cell number and was charged with 150 minutes. So far so good. I decided to do the AT&T thing after all, despite the fact that I found five wireless hotspots with decent to excellent signal strength at my place. They had of course all been encrypted and I would have had to find the people actually owning the routers to ask them whether we could share access. That'd be so complicated.

So I went to the currency exchange thingy and had another talk with a lady behind the bullet-proof glass. She did seem to know what I meant when I talked about the deposit for AT&T. I then used the pay phone in that same establishment for another conversation with the computer voice of AT&T .. I started chuckling at the "mmmmkay" he kept saying whenever he finally understood my zip code or reason for calling. When there was a human girl again she at first insisted that I had to "fill out an application" first, using the order number the other girl had given me before she could be convinced though that plugging in my phone cable was actually possible now. After about another 15 minutes of painful setup, she said it'd be done by midnight.

Oh well. Since I was almost home, I stopped by there again before setting out to finally get bedding, kitchen tools and groceries. The handiman was still happily laying down tiles and I gave CS a quick call to let her know my new cell phone number. Then I was off to that same shopping center again, this time carrying my now empty sports bag and after a quick pit-stop at T-mobile to ask what text messages on that prepaid thing would cost I went straight to the hardware store.

Boy, was that overpriced. After I had three things off my list in the cart I was convinced buying everything here would cause me to have to cut the trip short. So I put the stuff back on the shelves.

I had learned in the office that there was a Target store downtown - there was no doubt in my mind anymore that I'd need to go there.

So I went up to the Metra station and found that - of course - the last one had left about 15 minutes prior so the next one could be expected in 45 minutes. So I went on a couple blocks further to find a number 6 bus station. This express bus took about 20 minutes up to the Target store's street and I only had to walk about six more blocks














to reach the discount store of my dreams. They have shopping cart escalators for crying out loud ..


Anyway I found everything I'd need to survive the first night and morning at my place. Tomorrow I'll try and get one of those multi-day CTA passes and I'll probably take another swing at that marvelous, huge store full of very reasonably-priced goodies.

I carried all my prized new acquisitions home, always a few steps ahead of the incoming thunderstorm
and taking one picture to make phèdre jealous, then arranged them neatly for you to see. So please look at the picture and be aware that I now have dibs on the patent for what I plan to call the Chicago Survival Pack (tm).

When I plugged my brand-new $5.99-phone into the wall I was only mildly surprised to find a dial tone on it - long before midnight. Next step of course was to plug in the laptop and try out that brand new dialup internet access I had bought in the morning. Boy is this stuff sluggish. Especially bringing you these pictures even after having scaled them down to below 100kb is a major pain that I hope you guys appreciate. All those offers by AT&T to upgrade me to broadband right away don't sound so unnecessary anymore ..

Just minutes after plugging in the laptop and actually going online this strange sound resembling a ship's horn that was later identified as a doorbell announced the arrival of Trillian, which for reasons I am too tired to get into now I didn't expect at all.

I have now been blogging for over three hours and I'm sure if you're actually still reading this you'll be glad if I call it a night for now. Still have to upload 20 pictures to this post which will take me at least another 30 minutes. DSL is just $14.99 a month .. hrmmmmph ..