Back to the Windy City

Sorry I haven't been up to date on my blogs but things have been CRAZY!!!!!! We got back from Florida about a week ago and its been the fastest week ever. Between searching on craigslist for furniture, arranging our apartment and room, finding zipcars, getting to practice fields and still trying to get things to Chicago from home its pretty much been one big blur.
First, our apartment is looking great. Right now, I am sitting on the floor with a pillow and blow up mattress watching our barely broken in tv from craigslist (We got a great deal). Don't worry our couches are coming and they are going to looking fabulous. Brit Klein and I are sharing a room and I love it. We have worked really hard to make it feel homey and I think it is almost there. I really want to put some Christmas lights in there but I can not find them anywhere this time of the year. Chioma and Lydia our other two roommates are awesome. Lydia is a fantastic baker and has been making us treats the pass couple of days. Her banana bread is my favorite!
Second, zipcars.....we are back in the city and using zipcars again. I love zipcars but I especially love them when I know where to find them. We have been trying to get the zipcars in the same garages so that we know how to get them but one morning we had to change it up because all the other ones were booked. Let me tell you it was one big adventure. We had practice at 10 so we wanted to leave early because traffic could be bad and we didn't want to be late. Brit and I started our early morning trek out of our apartment building around 8:20 because we still had to pick up some of our teammates in another part of the city. We were pretty confident in our sense of direction around the city but we were humbled really fast. The parking garage was on East Illinois about two blocks away. We walked the two blocks found East Illinois and then ran into a slight problem. In Chicago some of the street have an upper and lower level. I have no idea why this is and it really just makes things more confusing but someone thought it was a good idea. Not knowing exactly what to do we decided to take the lower level. There was an outside parking lot and we saw zipcar signs so we thought that we were in the clear. Little did we know neither of those cars were the ones that we booked. We asked the person that was at that parking lot were the address was that we needed to be and he could not help us. We preceded to follow East Illinois street. We saw 240 East Illinois the garage that we need to get into. At this point we have wasted so much time and need to get to the car as fast as we could. Apparently the garage that we need to go to is on the Upper Street of East Illinois. We were to far down East Illinois to back track so we needed to find a solution fast. There was an exit to another parking garage so we sprinted up the hill staying near the wall just in case a car came. (clearing our brains were not working at there full capacity at this point). We need to do whatever we could to get to that car. If we have learned anything from preseason it was if you don't think you can do it, YOU CAN. That philosophy has taken over our thinking in ever aspect of life. We made it up the exit ramp safe and sound. We were in an empty parking garage but it wasn't the right one. We quickly ran to the nearest elevator to see if there was a third floor (thats the level that the zipcar directions told us the car was going to be on) and there wasn't so we had to think quick again. We were stuck at the elevator...Brit saw East Illinois street outside the window and we had to get there as quick as possible. We had an elevator in front of us and an up escalator to the right of us. Our quick thinking told us to run as fast as we could down the up escalator.
I always wanted to do this as a little kid and I am really happy that I got the chance to. After our swift race down the up escalator we were exactly at the same spot that we started at...The split into upper and lower East Illinois. I spotted some stairs we raced up them skipping every other stair so that we could get up them as fast as possible. Ran to an elevator that said parking garage and hoped that this one had a level three. We got in and there was a level three. As the elevator doors open a weight lifted off our shoulders. There it was the zipcar that we had been searching for right in front of us. Sweat dripping down our faces and trying to find our breath we found our car. Our mission was almost complete, were we going to make it to practice on time. We picked up our teammates headed to practice, luckily did not get lost and made it in the nick of time. Once we got a chance to settle down we looked at each other and laughed because we could not believe all that we did that morning. It was 9:15 and our day was just beginning.
This was one of the many crazy things that has happened in our crazy but fun lives. Tomorrow we are going to the Globe a famous soccer pub in Chicago to watch the Inaugural Match. I can not believe that the season is starting tomorrow. I hope that all of you are going to watch and be a apart of history.