Thanks for all your help: move to Chicago happening in a week [shock]

[shaktar]

Just to say thank you to everyone who has given advice on previous threads. Flights are booked for next week and we have an air bnb in oak park for a month while we frantically look for a rental.

Any last minute advice/things to bring or leave/bizarre culture shock things to expect: please say..

Good luck! Remember to always tip the waitstaff! Try not to die of cholesterol overdose while you're eating out - you are NOT expected to finish your plate, doggy bag for half the serving is a way of life! Try not to bum a fag from anyone! That's about it. Americans individually are as lovely and welcoming as you'd hope.

It is worth coming up with a good reply to "Oh I love your accent!" though. "I got it as a child" is all I can usually come out with :)

I love Oak Park. Great choice.

My main advice for now is to remember the weather WILL get better :-)

For now, skating at the Maggie Daley ice ribbon followed by hot chocolate in the Chicago Athletic Association is fun.

Keep asking us questions once you're out there, good luck, hope all goes well on the journey.

And remember, you can buy pretty much anything in the drugstore.

Bring snow boots, down-filled coats, mittens, woolly socks, scarves, hats, dress in layers when it gets really cold. We are still slogging through winter.

Get out as much as you can - the Main Library has a noticeboard where you might find leads for events. Ridgeland Common has a good rink with public skating hours. The Lake Theatre is a nice cinema
www.meetup.com/cities/us/il/oak_park/
Find your tribe.

The Dollar Store in Oak Park is a great place for stuff like cotton balls, knockoff Q tips, name brand cake mix, hair elastics, decent wine glasses. There is a decent Aldi south on Harlem Avenue (stay in the right lane after 16th street and pass the Jewish cemeteries). Checkout is more civilised than Aldis in the UK. Pete's Fresh Market is a nice grocery store in OP.

Get a local realtor to help you find somewhere to rent (or buy) in the OP or RF area (if that is your plan). Oak Park and River Forest are both quite closed shops when it comes to real estate in any form. 'Outside' agents don't get the same leads.

Get Ventra cards for the train and CTA buses. You can buy them in Walgreens and CVS and currency exchanges, as well as Ventra vending machines.
www.ventrachicago.com/how-to/ventra-cards/

People use Uber and Lyft a lot here.

If you will have a car and are planning to park on the street, you will need to contact Village Hall to find out how to do this without getting ticketed.

Good luck with the move OP.
Sadly it is rather chilly at present but it won't last too much longer.

When you're packing, make sure to bring lots of your favourite tea/coffee/biscuits - enough to tide you over for a few weeks until you find something you like that's available locally.

You should be in Chicago by now I think - hope all is going well!

Hello! We have been here since Friday and mercifully the weather was glorious over the weekend so we weren’t rocking in an air BnB wailing and wondering what we had done!

Fingers crossed we have found somewhere to rent in highland park and are slowly getting the hang of things..

I was there this weekend too - it was lovely! Tuesday though... you got your snowboots ready?

Hope the rental works out.

Lovely!

Bundle up for the next few days!

So after all that... we are now panicking and thinking my husband may lose his job due to recession/his job can’t be done from home easily. We’ve bought a car, found a house, spent cash but now we are wondering whether we should cut our losses while we still can..

Anyone else on a visa worried about job loss? Am I insane? Do I just need to step away from news sites and do some deep breathing?!

Honestly we are concerned about the financial hit that is going to be coming this way and the impact this could have on us.

It costs the company to have us on a VISA and we are more vulnerable than US citizens.
However there isn't much we can do about this so like everyone else we are hunkering down at home for the foreseeable.

Thanks for replying @midwestspring
It's certainly v strange times but you are right, all we can do is stay put and try and stay well

I'd been wondering how you are shaktar. It must be so worrying.

If you went back to the UK would your DH have a job there? Would it be easier to survive financially? Do you have a house there?

Assuming your DH's visa is tied to his job, I'd want him to be staying in close touch with his employers about whether they're likely to let him go.

Can he offer to take a pay cut or work shorter hours so that they'll keep him on? My DH is in the hotel and construction industries which have both been decimated, and he's offering some employees the choice of unemployment or much shorter hours which at least means they still have a job and health insurance.

Thank you @HoldMyLobster

Yes, the visa is tied to the job. He is in constant contact with his boss so we are telling ourselves we are doing all we can. The parent company made a lot of people redundant yesterday but at the moment his part of the business is just taking pay cuts.

All we can do is wait and see - our shipment has arrived in New York but we've asked them to store it to make it easier/cheaper if we do have to leave. Argh! First world problems I very much know, but we would be gutted to leave.

This situation is so stressful. Moving is difficult enough with out these added pressures. I wish I had something more constructive to say but it sounds like you are already doing what you can. All I can say is that for us, we are trying not to make any long term decisions on “short”-term conditions. Just keep swimming, do your best and try to stay out of the way x

How are you holding up @shaktar?

Hi @Beetle76

Still hanging in! We decided just to bite the bullet and release our stuff from NYC but that was 2 weeks ago and they still don’t know how they will get it here. First world problems I know but staying in and having a proper sofa rather than than garden chairs to sit on would feel v luxurious at the moment. God knows what will happen with his job but keeping everything crossed that we don’t end up having to go back to the UK yet..

I’m glad you are still here. You’ll feel a whole lot better once your stuff arrives. I know exactly what you mean about sofa vs garden chairs. When we first moved, I had two garden chairs, a TV, and a bed. I didn’t have a car yet, and could only go grocery shopping once every 10-14 days - so my first month or two was basically practicing for lockdown. I can laugh about it now, but I was seriously taking strain at the time.
But chin up - there is hope. We had neighbours move in across the road last week. They had two smaller trucks drop their things, so stuff is moving. Unfortunately much of it was unceremoniously unloaded and unwrapped on to the driveway (the furniture) but I thought it was a reasonable way of doing it given the current circumstances. I hope you get your stuff soon. Hang in there!