Holy shit!

It was a bit windy here the other day. Nothing out of the ordinary, though -- apparently, it was not even a hurricane worthy of a name.

Still, it took down about 2 huge trees in our street and about 8 in the street next to ours.

Fortunately, all but one of them fell on streets and back yards, only one family's house got hit.

Although it was not that fortunate for us. Our cul-de-sac was blocked by a gigantic tree, so we could not leave by car. Which is a major problem if you don't have electricity. We had to get up in the morning, ride our bikes to campus, before we had our first coffee. Nooooo!!!!!!

We came home that evening and nothing had been done, so we were wondering if we'd ever get electricity again.

But on Saturday, they came out in full force!




 We left for a couple of hours, and came back to find the tree all but removed.
  I don't know how they did it, but they even managed to patch up all the power lines by 10pm that day. Our internet service came back up by Sunday afternoon, and now, we're back in business!
 

Chinatown

One of the things I had been most looking forward to in Chicago was Chinatown. Yesterday, I finally made my way there. As the waitress remarked, I "ordered like a Chinese" since who knows when I'll have another chance to eat real Chinese food!

The 夫妻肺片 (husband and wife lung slices) was my absolute favorite. We used to eat this in 沸腾鱼乡 in Beijing, but I think I may like the version they had here in 老四川 even better. The beef was flavored with a bit of five spice, and the spiciness was just right. According to the menu, they get all their ingredients straight from China, and you could definitely taste this. Especially the Sichuan peppers were delicious!

The 红油黄瓜 was OK, but not very special. Good one to keep in mind though if we're making our own Chinese food, as this seems like a very easy side dish to make...

The piece of the resistance was this 东坡肘子 (Dong Po pork elbow). The meat was super tender and delicious. I was not quite used to the sauce they used -- it was similar to the red sauce on 对鱼头 (duo fish heads) in 郭林. It worked, but I found myself missing the slightly sweeter version I am used to...

Day 2 in Chicago

I did not fulfill my promise yesterday, and no results, groundbreaking or not, were attained. At some point, I decided to stop working all the same, and made my way back downtown.

I had a wonderful dinner at Fox and Obel. The waiter convinced me that it was a good idea to buy a huge bottle of beer, since "they are sold at retail price, so buying more is saving more"! The result of course was that I got so drunk that all the money I "saved" had to be spent on dessert. It was worth every penny though!

Hachi!(cago)

Yesterday, I arrived in Chicago. I was prepared for it being less than hot, but, my God, I was not prepared for it being rainy and 47 Fahrenheit (for our European readers: that is 8 Celsius)! I solved my predicament by eating a bowl of delicious spicy noodles at Slurping Turtle, followed by catching up on my beauty sleep. What an exciting life I lead!

Today, I hope to do a bit better. The weather is definitely better with an amazing 57 Fahrenheit (14 Celsius) and plenty of sunshine. But first, I need to prove some ground breaking results, since I don't want to disappoint all of you taxpayers who are paying for this trip!