Last Tuesday Rachel and I moved all of our stuff into our new apartment in Philly. With a lot of help from my parents and my cousin we knocked it out in less than an hour. We needed to provide our own refridgerator (i know, weird) but my uncle found one at his dad's house that nobody was using. A free fridge sounds real good. After unloading everything we save the fridge for last only to realize that as we are carrying it to the doorway it was going to be way too big and would no way fit through the doorway. Bummer! Back in the truck it went and Rachel and I went about 3 days before we found another one that would fit. This one would set us back $60 but that is no big deal.
Also, we come to find out on Friday that our block is having a 'block party' on Saturday. What a great way to meet our new neighbors. All day Friday there were signs posted that we needed to move our cars on Saturday for street cleaning. Street cleaning in Chicago is very different than street cleaning in southwest Philly. I got up at about 7:50 to move our car and our neighbor, who was the 'block party coordinator' says, "wow, I'm so glad your up because nobody else is here to help street clean". It was then that I noticed the garbage bags and the big shop brooms that were to be used to sweep the street. After going in and putting on some better shoes I got back out there and cleaned our block. It was a good time though because I was able to meet some other guys who live on the block and who eventually came out to help. The party got going about 3:00 p.m. so Rachel and I went out and tried to be social. Block parties in southwest Philly is just another way of basically inviting all your friends and family who live elsewhere to come by and BBQ in the street with loud music. Nobody from the block really interacts with eachother. They just hang out with their own friends and family. It turned out not to even be a valuable time of meeting neighbors because everybody that we met didn't even live on the block. Oh well, I guess we will just chalk that up as one of our different cultural experiences.
We are however, real excited about our block and the opportunity that we have to simply be a neighbor.
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