5 Lessons from my First Month in Chicago

So I moved to Chicago in the beginning of June. It's my first time living in a city, and honestly, I'm loving it. In honor of being here for a month, I thought I'd round up a few things I've learned:

1. Public transportation is actually pretty great. I like being able to go to different parts of the city without having to figure out where to park my car. Plus it can be so empowering the first few times you get where you need to go without looking it up on Google Maps each time. The bus system here is pretty clean, and the L train system is nice and reliable. I live closest to the Brown and Purple lines, and one of my best friends lives on the Blue line, though, which isn't ideal (which is where Uber Pool comes in!)

2. The numbering system is actually pretty logical once you learn it. A kind Uber driver explained it to me, that many of the more major roads are numbered kind of like in NYC, where the road's coordinating number is associated with a particular block. So, let's take Armitage for example. Armitage is 2000 North, and Fullerton is 2400 North. If for example, a building is on a road that intersects both of those streets, and its street number is between 2000 N and 2400 N, you know it's somewhere north of Armitage and south of Fullerton. Got it?

3. Sales tax here is shockingly high. This may come as no surprise to you, but I've paid over 10% sales tax on items in certain parts of the city. I've  never lived anywhere that sales tax is over 6%, so this came as a big shock to me. Also, taxes can be confusing because there's a lot of variation between items. I still don't have this one figured out quite yet, but we'll get there.

4. The people here really are as friendly as they say. No matter how tough of a day I'm having, I feel like the people in this city are really genuine. Like, last week I was carrying a bunch of heavy packages and a random man on the street held my door open for me. Just today I had a conversation with some random people in my elevator about Trader Joe's peanut butter cups. I'm overwhelmed to say the least, living in a big city for the first time, but I love that I have encountered so many genuinely kind people. And that's why I love the midwest.

5. You need to check the forecast before you leave your apartment. The weather's totally crazy sometimes, and it can go from stormy and in the 60's to sunny and in the 80's and back again within a few hours, which can make getting around really unpleasant if you're unprepared. So make sure to know when you'll need an umbrella and when to wear pants instead of shorts!