On the bright side, Joe and I made at least three lovely discoveries about our neighborhood. First is that my bank, which not only let me open an account with an out-of-state driver's license (an apparent rarity in these parts), is open on weekdays until 8 PM. And it opens at 7 AM. 7 AM to 8 PM!!! And, it's open until 4 PM on Saturdays. A bank with a longer workday than its clientele, so that it can actually serve them! (My local branch of PNC Bank in Pittsburgh was open from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM, closed on Saturday.)
Second, more importantly, Andy's Deli on Milwaukee Ave., just half a mile north of us in the Polish district, sells about 7 varieties of pieorgie! In addition to the more traditional ones (like Mrs. T makes, ha ha, sauerkraut and potato and cheese), they have blueberry and plum. We got some plum ones and ate them with ice cream — delish!
Third, when those cold winter mornings arrive, there's at least three yummy-looking bakeries where we can find bready things to stuff ourselves...
Finally, I just want to say again how amused I am about the location we chose to live. Technically we are in Logan Square, a heavily Latino neighborhood. But we are only a couple blocks south of the Avondale neighborhood, which is heavily Eastern European. A grocery on our block has everything written in Spanish; two blocks north, everything is in Polish. And I have no concept of how to pronounce anything in Polish; it's got too many consonants. The general rule seems to be to add “i” to the end of the word, plus a lot of “w” and “z.” We need a Polish friend to help us out here.