I feel like we have had the opportunity to eat and drink at some wonderful establishments and the good fortune of seeing some amazing things here. However, this is the third-largest city in the US, and as such, there is a wealth of unexplored territory. We've started creating a Chicago bucket list filled with all the things we'd like to see and do and eat, either for the first time or re-visited, before we leave.

After a morning of work (and heartily berating myself for not having completed the work before I left), I set out for a little exploring. David was off at CUNY, soaking in his fair share of syntactic processingy goodness. I thought I’d check out the Greenwich Village first, as I’d heard it was a good shopping neighbourhood. However, not checking my subway map closely enough meant that I ended up on an express train bound for the Brooklyn Bridge. Not in any particular hurry to get to the Village, I decided to explore the Financial District a bit first.

David and I spent a tragic amount of the beautiful, warm, perfect-for-romping-about-New-York morning plugging away on final papers. Not able to bear the thought of spending all day in my hotel room, I skipped out to check-out SoHo, while David headed off to the first day of the CUNY conference. Clad in a bright red dress, I cheerfully made my way through the historic district with its cobblestone streets and lined with beautiful cast iron buildings.

We caught a cab and headed into Manhattan, and I was soon thrilled to be catching a glimpse of the New York skyline. The travel bug that had been forced into dormancy at the start of grad school was soon awake and chirping again. We dropped our bags off at our hotel and headed out into the city to, sadly, get some work done. During our walk to the nearby Union Square, we happily discovered a Tim Hortons, which I hadn’t realized had expanded to New York. Eager for a little nostalgic taste of home, we ordered a couple donuts and a coffee for breakfast before heading on our way.