Waiting for Cooler Days

It's hot. That's about all there is to it folks. Our apartment sits on the edge of the research park, a relatively new addition to the U of I with very few trees, and the agricultural testing fields. As a result, our place bakes in the sun all day long. Couple this with the fact that we're on the third floor of the building and you have a recipe for hot. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

As a result we've been hibernating for the past two weeks in the relative comfort of our living room, making forays into the community for things like food and other supplies. We have managed to check out a considerable number of sights around town and also figure out where we need to go to get everything we'll need. This has been done mostly in the cool of the evening when the sun is mostly down. Otherwise going out is pretty miserable.


Last weekend we checked out some of the restaurants and bars in downtown Champaign. There are some really classy places to get a drink and hang out on the weekends. We found a restaurant that offers live jazz every Saturday night, a brewery that makes its own beer, and a bar that reminds us a lot of Wisconsin bars. Plus we've managed to get a couple of meals out. We tried an Indian restaurant last weekend and last night we went out for Italian at The Great Impasta.


We also made a trip to the U of I bookstore this week, got our student ids, and took a stroll and bike ride through campus. It's a beautiful campus with lots of stately buildings, a great quad, and some really nice landmarks. We also checked out the city bus system (we get free rides with our student ids) and found that there are several bus stops right outside our front door that take us to campus in about ten minutes. This is great because I don't really want to have to worry about parking if I don't need to. We also purchased some school supplies and I got myself all decked out with Illini wear.


This week we also got library cards at the Champaign library, went to the farmers market in Urbana, and checked out some music events at the Krannert Center and an outdoor music concert at the Research Park last night. On Thursday night we even went to the Quad and watched date night on a big screen that was set up. I guess they show movies once a month on the Quad in the summer. It was nice.


Next week things get rolling towards the school year. It's still summer vacation but I have some meetings on Monday and Tuesday for my TA and then again on Friday for the school of music. One week from today I get to take placement tests in music theory and history. This will determine what levels of theory or history I need to take. Classes start a week from Monday. I'm excited to get started.