Neighborhood Adventures, minus the documentation.

Sorry for no pictures this week, the only opportunity I felt could have benefited from pictures, which I will get to a bit later, is the one where I forgot my camera. Hence you will have only my words to go by.

I felt my like my morning story and my Chicago adventures this past week required separate posts, otherwise It would be one really really really long post.

Anyways the past two Friday's have been really good highlights for me in our class known as Core Course. Two Friday's ago, we got to explore one of Chicago's many secrets, The Pedway. I already knew a little about the Pedway from one of my teachers, Robyn, and she told me about this shortcut to get to school. I was a little hesitant when she said it was underground, thinking it sounded a little sketchy, but she was like no, no, it's a shopping mall. Now I was really confused but willing to give it a try. So the next day I got off the blue line at Washington (instead of Clark and Lake) and since then I've been hooked. It's so much faster! I knew that the Pedway extended far past where I turned up the stairs to go to the street level, and promised that I would explore where it leads to someday, not knowing that that day would be so soon! Our core course teacher's Robyn and Mary, decided to take our class on a Pedway adventure, and I got to explore more of the Pedway territory, and I can now get anywhere I need downtown using this amazing system.

Yesterday however, was a whole new experience entirely. Our Core course class was split up into 2 groups to study 2 different neighborhoods, one was assigned to go to Bronzeville and and my group was to go to Humbolt Park. I knew a bit about both neighborhoods, and knew there was much more to them than there bad reputations. I was glad I got to go to Humbolt Park, as Peurto Rican influence was much more interesting to me as I have friends who are Peurto Rican, or who are from that area. The goal was to learn by talking to people from the community (meetings that were set up by our teachers) and it was so amazing. In the morning I got to meet Brooke, an amazing and young 20 something who founded a non profit arts center called Rumble Arts which offers free art programming and free community space to the community of Humbolt Park. She gives and finds programming that the community wants, not what she wants to give. In less than four years it has gone from her and 1 room to 3 floors of an entire building and 8 partner organizations. She is so inspirational and it is really cool talking to someone who is doing exactly what I want to do, giving back to people especially the arts.

The rest of our day was just as cool, we ate some pretty good Peurto Rican food for lunch, and visited the Intsitute of Peurto Rican arts and Culture which is a beautiful building with a history that intrigued me. At that point, I was wishing that we could have heard about the other parts of Humbolt Park, not just the highly publicized Puerto Rican side, but had settled with the fact that since we were at a Puerto Rican Center, that was just what our teachers had set out for us to learn about today. HA! Little did I know about a fiesty Peurto Rican named Dr. Jose Lopez, who, in my opinion, if he wasn't spending his days being the face of Humboldt Park, should be a professor at a university. This man told us stories, and did explain the whole Humbolt Park, and almost put more emphasis on the African American influence than anything else. He was very entertaining to listen too, and I think I learned more from him historically and educationally than I have all semester. If he was a professor, I would take every class he offered. Peace.

Chicago, the city of Bipolar weather, perfect for me!

Well with no pun intended (well maybe a little) in that title, Chicago has really been a bag of surprises lately. It has gone from sunny and 10 degrees, to sunny and 45 degrees, to 20 degrees and freezing snow that melts into lots of water the next day when it goes to 50 degrees again, and now this morning, it is lightly snowing. So despite the sky not being able to make up its mind and the unseasonably warm days we've been having, I am slowly reminded that it is still winter this morning, even though the snow is not sticking and I walked to and from the coffee shop with just a warm sweater, no jacket. I also remembered that is is now March, and that spring will soon be upon us, hopefully.

However I would love to mention the awesome coffee shop I went to this morning, but it requires a short background story before of how I ended up there. Around 10am my roommate came in and said that some people were going to get breakfast at the Cozy Diner, a cute little place by the train which I've heard nothing but good things about there food. She asked me to come and at that point I had been up for an hour or so reading and I was definitely getting hungry. I threw on a sweater over my leggings, and waited for the rest of them to finish getting ready.

Growing up Jewish, I've been to quite a few diners and breakfast places, and I assumed that my roommates had the same background knowledge about how busy diners are on a Saturday morning around 10:30, and you are always expected to wait but it rarely takes more than five or ten minutes to be seated. I guess I assumed wrong, and as soon as they saw the crowd, they quickly decided to go across the street to the Taqueria for Mexican food. I felt bad leaving them, but I just was not in the mood for Mexican this morning, so I said I'd catch them later and I was just going to walk back.

I didn't walk more than 20 feet before I saw a sign that was ringing a bell in my brain. Cafe Mustache was just staring at me from right across the street. Now, wasn't that the coffee shop that I've heard about from no less than 3 people who live or have lived around here, but had yet to try? If I couldn't try the diner this morning, why not take the opportunity to try something else new? Besides I really wanted breakfast. and Coffee. Turns out, the Coffee was really good (and bottomless!) and the scone was perfectly sweet. the place was full, but not crowded, there was no line but almost always a customer at the counter, and it was quiet, but not silent, with music you could here and a perfect hum of people, but 1000 times more relaxing than the fast paced noise you'd find in any Starbucks on a Saturday morning. I stayed a little over 20 minutes enjoying my breakfast and then decided I need not dilly dally as I have so much work to get done this weekend.

Backtrack to last night, a bunch of the students from the program were going to this comedy thing with a moderate cover charge. When I turned them down, someone said I was going to regret not going to things. I think they were pointing out the fact that I don't do things with "the group" as much as the rest of them. But in all honestly I probably more experiences than they have. I go to film screenings and coffee shops. They go to museums and Subway(the restaurant chain). When they chose to stay in and have a small gathering of students chill at the apartment last Friday night, exactly like they would do any weekend at college dorms, I chose to take advantage of free tickets to a play instead. I like to think that a lot of the students in this program take advantage of the popular, where as I like to think I take advantage if the unexpected, unpopular, or last minute. Again different interests. Peace.

Logan Squared

Chicago is an amazing city none the less, but Logan Square is an even more amazing neighborhood as I am slowly discovering. Besides the good Mexican food joints I see scattered everywhere on a daily basis, I was not seeing any other types of food around, until today that is. I knew that there are many different and amazing places to get food here, I just haven't really seeked any of them out. However, in the midst of gathering photo's for an art project I have to do, I found a strip of four restaurants, all that looked unique and intriguing, and none of them to my knowledge serve Mexican food! I was almost saddened that I had not brought my wallet, only my camera and notebook, so that I could have stopped for a late lunch. However my face lit up just as I turned the corner and saw not only the blue line station a block away (hey, I was tired from walking all over the place gathering pictures!) but the gorgeous "square" that i see as the heart of Logan Square. Its more oval shaped to say the least, and the streets function in sort of a roundabout fashion. As cold and tired as I was I decided to stop and take a few picture in this small beautiful outdoor stretch of green:

Peace