dom.blog

The flat

For the second year running, we celebrated New Year with a densely packed throng in the living room of the Mile End sister flat. Apparently I had my eyes closed for 99% of the time, if these photos are anything to go by. And happy new year to the accommodating bus driver of the packed 277 home, who allowed me and Anna onto the front as long as we crouched down on the floor and held on tightly 😀

On the roof

Coupley wintery Chicago photo

My first thanksgiving was lovely 🙂 As promised: lots of delicious turkey, sweet potatoes and cranberries, unexpectedly adjoined with a boisterous game of charades. This only reinforced the impression that Thanksgiving is basically a dry-run for Christmas day, which is fine as long as you don’t suffer any major family falling-out the first time around. Still, on discovering that Americans don’t have Christmas crackers, I propose a swap: we’ll all take days off work to eat, drink and be merry late-November time, as long as they wear little paper hats at Christmas to differentiate the meals. And because Christmas cracker hats are cool.

The other highlight of my trip so far was seeing A Clown Car Named Desire at Second City last night. The inspiration to go came from looking for a Chicago counterpoint to News Revue although the whole thing is bigger, more polished and less topical than that. Apparently Second City is particularly famous for its improv and last night there was a whole extra third act of improvisation tacked on to the end which was a lot of fun.

If I lived in Chicago, I expect I’d be back again before very long…