Final thoughts from Chicago

I absolutely loved my clinical in Chicago and I wanted to sum up some of the highs and the lows....
The great things of Chicago include:
1) Chicago has GREAT food and I became a "foodie" during my time there. Some of my favorite restaurants were Thai, Indian, Costa Rican and Cuban. Chicago has every possible type of food you can ever imagine and it's all so GOOD!
2) Chicago is one of the best cities in the country because of it's location on Lake Michigan. It seriously feels like you're on the ocean during summertime- everyone is always playing on the beach and having a great time on the water.
3) Chicago is great at building community within the city. There are lots of fun tourists things to do but I really enjoyed being a "local" and taking advantage of the festivals and farmers markets in Chicago. Both are AWESOME! My favorite festival was the rib fest and you just sample ribs from all the best BBQ places in the city.
4) I love how active the people of Chicago are. There are workout faciliites everywhere and tons of runners/bikers etc. I loved running/biking on Lake Michigan because it was beautiful on the water with the skyscrappers right there (not to mention that the people watching was superb- lots of runners look like they walked straight out of a Richard Simmons video with their 80s workout outfits. Also, I enjoyed watching people run/walk and analyzing their gait because I could easily determine who would soon have to be seen at PT because of their poor walk/run patterns.)
5) I LOVE PT! I seriously can't wait to be a PT for the rest of my life. The highlight of my day everyday was working with patients, whether either doing hands-on time with them or helping teach them exercises. I had so many wonderful and unique patients and I miss them all a lot. I have sooo many awesome patient stories and if you want to hear about them you can read back in my earlier blogs or ask me about them!
6)  Chicago is a very diverse city and most days I didn't feel like I was in the Midwest. I worked with lots of patients who were from all over the country or from other countries. I really liked interacting with patients so different from the ones I had worked with in Iowa. In Chicago my eyes were opened to a bigger world and I am so thankful for that because I want my world to never be small.
7) There are some WONDERFUL people that live in Chicago. I lived with and met some GREAT people during my 9 weeks. My roommate and her friends welcomed me in and invited me to everything with them! I learned so much from them all and really enjoyed my time with them.

and the not-so great things about Chicago....
-I'm really not a fan of Chicago's traffic. I am not patient enough to wait in standstill traffic for hours at 2:30pm on Friday afternoons when I'm trying to get back home
-I really like biking around the city but I never felt safe doing it. I had a couple too many close calls biking in the city (almost getting hit by a person opening their car door and then on a another occasion a car pulling a big U-turn and swiping my front wheel.)
-Chicago is a city of CRIME. I did not enjoy getting my car broken into on my birthday but more importantly I had several patients that were cops and they frequently told me stories about all the crime that happened in the city and it was CRAZY stuff! Feeling safe is one thing I realize I have always taken for granted and I miss the feeling of safety a lot when it's not present.

Overall, I loved Chicago and I loved my 9 weeks there. I'm so thankful that the Lord blessed my short time there in so many different ways! I don't plan on moving to Chicago after graduation but at the same time I'm not quite sure where the heck I'll end up...only God knows ; )