We can haz a home!!

Adam and I received our housing offer from the University today, which is pretty exciting. Overall we're pretty pleased with it, although like everything else in the world, it's not perfect. It's a one-bedroom in the northern part of Hyde Park, and it'll cost us $844/month for almost 600 sq. ft.-- which might seem expensive, unless you consider than in NYC we were paying $1200/month for 350 sq. ft. Then it looks positively reasonable. :P

Pros:
-Location, location, location. It's in the safer part of HP (from what I'm told, anyway) and there are about a million bus stops only a block away. It's close to the Metra station, too, in case Adam wants to take that to work. It's not, like, right next to the Div. School or anything, but I kind of prefer that-- I like a good walk in the morning.
-ELEVATOR. Enough said. Also, the service elevator (which we'd use when moving in) is, quite literally, right next door to our place. Yesssssssss.
-We're on the 7th floor, which is the very top, so we can continue our trend of always living in the "penthouse." (In Austintown we lived on the top floor of a three-story building; in NYC we lived on the top floor of a four-story building.) We like living on the top floor because it's quieter and seems a little more private.
-There's bike storage space for Adam's bike.
-It's bigger than our old place-- not by a LOT, but by enough.
-The kitchen has actual counters! And we can both fit in it at the same time! OMFG!
-There's a parking lot. We don't have a car, but it's nice to know that if we did have a car, like in the future or whatever, we'd have a place to park it.
-Three closets. It's a lifetime record for us!
-The building is A-okay with animals.
-We'll have the largest one-bedroom in the whole building, AND a view of the river!
-The building is wired for AT&T internet, so we'll no longer have to use Evil Horrible Time Warner Cable Internet of Death.

Cons:
-No dishwasher. Um, boo.
-Electric isn't included...and the stove is electric. Double boo.
-The bathroom looks kinda weird. Here, look:

Doesn't that toilet sort of look like a repurposed urinal? Maybe? Also, I'm not crazy about a window in the shower right at boob-height.
-No painting the walls in this place. Lame.
-Also, all the other apartments in the building are either one-bedrooms, furnished studios, or furnished two-bedrooms meant to be shared between two students. This means that there won't be many older families and instead we'll have a lot of younger, single grad students. This isn't exactly a con, I guess, since we are younger grad students, but...I just was hoping for more families, since Adam and I aren't partiers and don't really want loud drunken interruptions in the middle of the night. But hey, I've heard that U of C is very non-party-oriented, and it's not like we'll be living with any undergrads, so maybe this is a non-issue.
-No dishwasher. Again. It's so annoying that I had to mention it one more time. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So there you have it: the new McCluskey-Walker abode. Hyde Park, here we come!