So, here's my first step into the blogosphere...

As I write this blog, the view out of my window is of high rise buildings and a metro track that goes straight through the heart of Chicago.  Very different to the view of sheep that I have at home.  I’ve been here a week now, and feel really settled already (mainly thanks to the incredibly warm welcome that everyone involved with the Illinois St Andrew Society (ISAS) has given me!).  Saying that, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the passenger seat being on the other side of the car, no matter how settled I am! 

I’ve been spending the past few days finding my way around (made much easier by the grid system and the Starbucks on every corner which are proving to be helpful markers), and I have already managed to pay a visit to the ‘Magnificent Mile’ (the major shopping area) as well as to the Chicago Architecture Foundation, where you can see 3D models of how Chicago’s skyline came to be how it is today.  I’ve also been learning more about what I’m going to be doing at work.  ISAS aims to nourish Scottish identity and the Scottish-American community which exists in and around Chicago, and it’s my job as the Saltire Intern this summer to look at ways in which more young people can get involved.  It’s a great society and I’m really looking forward to working with them!

My first experience of what the society does was at the 24^th Annual Highland Games, only a couple of days after I arrived, which was a 2 day extravaganza of Scottish culture.  I’m talking haggis hurling, whisky tasting, massed pipe bands and knobbly knees competitions!  I was working on the admissions gate, signing in the pipers and the rugby players.  Not a bad job at all!!  The “baptism of rain” which I mentioned in the title came at the very start of the Games, as we were hit by an impressive storm (thunder, lightning, the works) which led to one of the other admission gate volunteers and I flagging down a golf cart (which was being used to ferry visitors around the vast site of the Games) so that we could get off the field and seek shelter in her car.  It was quite the Mid-West welcome!  The next day though, the quote ‘if you don’t like the weather in Chicago, wait 5 minutes’ definitely came into play, as I got mildly sunburnt on a more than glorious day!  The weather here seems to change all the time!

All in all, it’s been an exciting start to the summer, and I hope everyone else who is setting off in the next few weeks has a great time – and to those of you coming Stateside, the visa process really isn’t as horrible as it sounds!

Rachel x