Evanston's 4th of July Parade: I didn't realize how much more liberal it was here until the 4th of July Parade. There were democrats everywhere. The funniest/saddest part of the whole parade was when the pro life float went by. The people on the float were waiving to the crowd. The 10 year old boy in front of us started to wave at them, but then his mom yelled at him "don't wave at them." I doubt the boy knew why his mom was so mad at him. A few seconds later the traffic manager was telling the float to turn left into the parking lot. When the dad of this boy heard that he yelled, "No matter how hard you try, you won't get them go left." The whole crowd thought this was really funny.Smokers: I knew that there would be a lot more people that smoked here than in Utah. I am not surprised at all by the number of older people that smoke. What surprises me the most is the number of young people in their early twenties who smoke. There are a lot of them. I thought that smoking had kind of gone out of style with people my age or younger, but I guess that it hasn't. It doesn't bother me at all that older people smoke, but I think that young people that smoke are dumb because it means that when they started smoking they knew how harmful and addictive it was. Maybe this just bothers me so much because we listened to Runaway Jury on the road trip out here.
Thefts: I already mentioned that my bike got stolen from behind our apartment a couple of
weeks ago. What I haven't mentioned yet is that Amber and I almost caught a guy stealing another bike from behind our building. Amber thought she saw somebody stealing a bike from the rack so I went outside to check it out. The guy rode of just as I got there so I followed him from the other side of the building. I wasn't sure that he had stolen a bike so I didn't do anything besides follow him around. I pretended that I was on a jog, but I think he got suspicious. After getting a good look at him, I ran home and called the cops. I rode around with an undercover cop for a while, but the guy was gone. The officer reassured me that the neighborhood was safe, but that there was a problem with bike thefts. There are bikes everywhere because of all of the students. When I got back to the apartment we figure out what the guy had done. He ripped off the tires from silver bike (see picture) and attached them to the frame of another bike (see leftover tires). If you compare the picture above to the one posted a couple weeks ago you can see the two bikes were in working condition the week before.
Green: It is a lot more green here than in Utah. We love the large trees that hang over the roads. It gives the neighborhood a cool feel. The buildings are also a lot older. This took us a little while to get used to, but I think it definitely creates a different mood.These are just a few of the differences. We are having a great adventure out here so far.
