Coming to the half way point of my internship, I feel that I'm becoming increasingly Chicagoan.  I'm not sure whether that feeling has come from successfully giving Australian tourists directions the other day, or looking the right way first time when I cross the road, but it's the little things that help!

I have been speaking with a few of the younger people (although, it has been a source of serious debate in the office as to what age constitutes 'young'! - thoughts welcome!)  involved in the Society this past week, to find out a bit more about what they want as Chicago Scots.  It's really important to look into this, because ideally the project will continue in some form once I finish the internship, so I'm also attempting to come up with a strategy which will make young people's involvement sustainable...and hopefully find willing people to move it forward after I leave!  As well as all of this, last year's Saltire Intern at the Society, Claire, is back in the US (this time on holiday) so she visited the office yesterday to see how things were going...and brought cookies, which is always good news!

Last weekend, I headed into the north of the city to the Wicker Park neighbourhood for a look around - there are loads of nice boutiques and quirky coffeehouses.  Yukari, who lives in Wicker Park and works for Scottish Development International, showed me around (and was an excellent tour guide considering she only moved to Chicago in January!)  After a pizza stop (there is SO MUCH PIZZA in this city, which I can't complain about...), we parted ways and I headed to the Globe Pub to meet a friend from my building to watch the World Cup final.  The Globe is a 'traditional British pub', with a crazy amount of screens to watch football matches on.  The place was packed, but luckily we ended up finding a space in amongst a massive number of Spaniards.  You can imagine the atmosphere when the final whistle went!!

I've also taken a trip to Buddy Guy's Legends, which is right around the corner from where I'm staying.  It's a famous jazz/blues bar, with all sorts of famous people having played there.  I was there the night that Big James and the Chicago Playboys were playing.  They did some original stuff, and then some covers of Kanye West.  I'm definitely going back, and there might even be some dancing in the aisles...I was hoping Richard Gere would make a jazz-hands appearance, but alas, no such luck.  Although the new Transformers movie is currently filming here, so fingers crossed I manage to catch a sighting!

Since I've somehow managed to post a relevant photo with each entry, here's one of the Buddy Guy's stage - 

Think that's my Chicago news for now!

Rachel x