In planning our summer trip to Chicago, centered around the four-day music festival, Lollapalooza, we came across Jon and Kate’s place. This Airbnb was in a good neighborhood with plenty of restaurants and interesting stores. Transit was easily accessible and good food wasn’t hard to find nearby. The actual unit was a sort of basement-type deal that was well furnished and adorably decorated.
The studio was well stocked with toiletries, extra pillows, a hair dryer, and even bathrobes. The shower, WiFi and the bed were all decent and worked well for us. The strong A/C unit in conjunction with a spacious living area was a relief to come home to at the end of each day. One particularly impressive element found inside was an old tube television complete with VHS player hooked up to an original Nintendo Entertainment System. Alongside this blast-from-the-past setup was a collection of various essential 90’s films on VHS. I’ll admit that we didn’t really use these much while we were there, but the detail that went into setting this all up gave the home a warm, nostalgic feeling. The only things that were seemingly missing were a full-body mirror and a trash can in the bathroom.
We used two methods to get downtown, the bus and the train. The former was a tad dodgy, with each bus arriving significantly later than scheduled, due to road closures nearby. The latter was relatively reliable and the nearest station was only fifteen minutes away on foot (which, admittedly, feels like a much longer walk at night than in the day). Generally, a trip downtown was as long as 40 minutes, so we made sure to plan our days in advance. We arrived home most days from 11p to as late as 1a, but we never felt unsafe in Andersonville. There were plenty of streetlights to guide us home after long, arduous days at the festival.
All in all, Jon and Kate’s place was in a great location to call home for a week, and our stay was effortlessly comfortable.