Hello Chicago!

We’ve successfully survived our first week in Chicago! It hardly seems like yesterday we were panicking about getting the house in Horsham packed up before the taxi to the airport arrived.

The boys were amazingly patient on the flight — eight and a half hours and not a peep from either. Isaac played happily in Ness’s lap, and William slept or watched CBeebies on the British Airways in-flight entertainment.

Clearing through immigration was far less traumatic than we were anticipating: as we had small children and lots of hand luggage an airport employee took pity on us and let us through the fast track line. The immigration officer was friendly and helpful and processed our visas in no time. Past immigration, we found a porter to help us pick up our six large suitcases, two car seats, pram and buggy board and load them onto a taxi. Before we knew it we were sitting, somewhat shell-shocked, in our new apartment overlooking Millennium Park.

Last weekend flew by; we explored the surrounding area on foot (it’s not as cold as we were anticipating here); we picked up our hire car and went to the fantastic Shedd Aquarium; we shopped for warmer clothes and stocked up on staple foods.

Matt, William and Isaac pose under the Cloud Gate (a.k.a. "The Bean") sculpture in Millennium Park.

The week also flew by; I was at work (minus some time sorting out a bank account and social security number), and Ness and the boys continued to explore Chicago, checking out the Willis Tower, visiting the art museum (rude not to; it’s next door), touring the city on the trolley bus and generally getting their bearings.

We’ve just been out for a lovely meal at the Park Grill and now Ness and I are enjoying a lovely cup of tea. We had to import two large boxes of Yorkshire tea and an electric kettle that works on 110V to do so as the US tea is so awful.