I have formed a deep emotional attachment to an air-conditioning unit.  Ridiculous as it sounds (particularly to those still enjoying the delights of rainy Scottish weather), the low whirring in the background is much better than the sky-high temperatures.  On Friday, it was the hottest day Chicago has seen in 4 years.  Not what someone as fair-skinned as me relishes...although I am enjoying actually having a reason to wear sunglasses and sandals all the time!

On the work front, I am currently putting together the final touches for my recommendations report on the Society's youth strategy.  This means I've been typing up my notes, inserting graphs and only having a minor hiccup attempting to convert the chart file formats so they'd be recognised in MS Word.  No idea what was going on with the computer that day!!  Tomorrow I am meeting with the 'Heather Queen' to discuss her ideas (the 'Heather Queen' title is given to a girl between 16 and 22, and is competed for at the Highland Games.  She is someone who is engaged with the Scottish-American community and who promotes the work of the Society and the community during her reign).  This should be a great meeting, as I hope that she will be able to offer some thoughts on continuing the project after I leave.  Everyone I have spoken to and worked with so far has been incredibly helpful (and so nice in welcoming me to the area) - I'm just going to have to come back and visit, simple as that!

Anyway, the report is going to be finished by the end of Thursday, which gives me 2 weeks (I know, only 2 weeks to go after this one!) to talk over my findings in the office, get some groundwork done on the implementation of the strategy and tie up loose ends before I head back across the pond.  So it's all go and time is no longer on my side.  I'm going to try and squeeze everything in that I can over the last stretch!!

So yeah, the end of my internship is SO SOON!  I can't believe it...I'm not ready to leave just yet, considering I'm now a certified Cubs fan and need to follow their progress...

I went to my first Cubs game on Sunday night, which was a lot of fun.  To be honest, I'm not the most clued up on the rules of baseball, but with a little help from the Twins (now Cubs...at least, she better be!) fan that I went with, and a little help from the other people sitting near me, we were all good by the end!  Most confusing to me was that all the fans sit together, regardless of which team they support.  I can't imagine this would ever work at say, an Old Firm game or at pretty much any football (soccer...I caught myself almost saying the dreaded 'S' word the other day) match in Scotland.  It was a great atmosphere at Wrigley Field though, and remained pretty much packed until the end (it was a close one, going into extra innings...sadly the Cubs lost, but I'm still definitely a new fan!!)  The atmosphere was made even better by the biggest bag of popcorn I've ever seen.  Needless to say, there was none of it left by the end of the game!

In other food news (I feel like this has been a bit of a regular feature in my blog posts...), I went to a great little place called Crepe Town.  The crepes were delicious, the smoothies were delicious...you get the picture.  Also this weekend, I had some food from South of the Border (that was the name of the section on the menu), consisting of enchiladas and a combination of toppings - in Chicago, you can pretty much get any type of cuisine you like, whenever you would like it...and that's the way I like it (aha aha...)

As I am tying up my project, I feel like I should also probably tie up this post.  Really looking forward to this weekend because I have a Saltire visitor!  Laura (who is working in Indianapolis) is braving the Megabus to spend a couple of days in Chicago.  I know the famous Second City comedy club is on the cards, but everything else is up in the air - a whistlestop tour of the best of Chicago I think!!

Keep working hard, playing hard...and blogging hard :)

Rachel x