I never fall in love at first sight with big cities. It happens all the time with small towns: I drive through them, or stop for lunch, or arrive at the hotel, and I feel immediately at home.

Not so with big cities. Big cities requires time for me: I have to approach them gradually. Find a street I like, or even a specific café, and then perhaps a certain part of the town. The infinite possibilities of a big city often make me hesitant and strangely recultant. Perhaps it’s some sort of awareness that it’s impossible to make that city into your own in just a few days, or even weeks: you need to live there to really be a part of it. And I want to be a part of towns I visit; I want to imagine myself living there, feeling what it would be like, eavesdroping to converastions, wandering around and taking it all in.

So no one was more surprised than I was when I found myself falling completely for Chicago within the first twenty minutes of me leaving the airport. I was not ready for love. I was tired and warm and uncomfortable and had been jostled about by O’Hare airport. I was only relieved to be in a car, with a nice, quiet driver.

And it’s not like I hadn’t seen a beatiful skyline at night before. The skyskrapers, the lights, I had seen it in a number of downtown areas before. But there was something special with this one. Perhaps the fog, slowly creeping in. Or perhpas it was the dark nothing-ness where the sea was. Maybe it made everything more manageable.

I don’t know. But however it happened I fell in love with Chicago right there and then, and everything I experienced in the next two days just strengthened that feeling.