A year in the best city in the United States

I had the opportunity to spend last year in this incredible city on an ICEX Scholarship, and fell in love with it straight away. After now having visited most of the main cities in the United States, I can say that I've found none better (in my opinion) than Chicago, though I also really liked Seattle, San Francisco and Boston.

On an architectural and aesthetic level, I believe Chicago is unrivalled (apart from perhaps by cities in Asia or Australia). It's a beautiful city, very walkable, with beaches, parks, and incredibly tall buildings and monuments everywhere.

The people of Chicago and their customs have good points and bad points about them, but at the end of the day, they're not that different to ours in Spain. The sentence I said the most during my stay was 'it's just like in the films! '. People in Chicago are famous all over the country for being very friendly, and sure, during my travels in the United States I've met worse people in other places. On a cultural level, Chicago has absolutely everything, not quite on the same scale as New York does, but close. In contrast, it's much calmer, prettier, cleaner and nicer. You can find all kinds of music scenes (especially blues), theatre, diverse shows, fairs, parties, concerts and all kinds of celebrations...especially during the summertime, it's utter madness and every day you'll have to make the hard decision of what leisure and cultural activities to go to.

In terms of partying, it all depends on your personal tastes, but I personally really like popular music, the kind of stuff they put on it bars and pubs... also, if you're not a fan of tobacco, you'll be as happy as I was when I went there, since you can walk around without smelling any cigarette smoke at all.

In terms of cuisine, Chicago is pretty good, as it has thousands of restaurants of varying quality serving food from all over the world, though the best-known are the most expensive. If you like to try a bit of everything, you'll be happy in this city (as you will in many other cities in the USA). Original American cuisine isn't famed for being the best in the world, but almost all of it is really tasty (even if not that healthy) and normally cheap. I especially recommend trying Chicago-style pizza (the famous stuffed 'deep dish' pizza).

From a prices point of view, it's the city with the highest taxes in the whole country, but this surprisingly doesn't mean it's the most expensive - it's cheaper than New York and San Francisco. With the current exchange rate from euros to dollars (1. 40-1. 50) it's cheaper than Madrid or Barcelona, for example. With everyday life, some things end up being cheaper than in Spain and some are the same price, if not slightly more expensive. Rent and housing are surprising affordable compared to in Spain, taking into consideration that this is a supercity. Tobacco and alcohol are expensive, though there are always good offers on in bars and in other places (there are webpages devoted to these specials).

The public transport could be better in my opinion, especially the metro, which is really old and slow, doesn't have many lines and is noisy. It's fantastic for taking photos though, especially on the Loop high up in the city centre, and the most important lines are 24 hours at least. The buses on the other hand are great (lots of lines and frequent), and they also have a machine available so that you can see when the next bus is coming, meaning you don't need to wait around unnecessarily. There are loads of taxis and they're not particularly expensive. It's a city where you never need a car, meaning that car parking facilities are very expensive and aren't worth the money if you ask me, unless you're rich!

Chicago's best plus points are definitely its aesthetics (architecture, roads and public spaces, lake beaches, etc. ) and the leisure and cultural activities it has to offer, especially in the summertime.

The only negative point about Chicago is its cold climate, which gets pretty bad in the wintertime (some days it gets down to -30 degrees) and stays this way for a long while (from November to April, it's pretty cold), though if you hate the rain like me you won't find it too bad, since it doesn't rain much there. It snows, and you'll be more comfortable wrapping up well when you go out in it. In the summertime, the temperatures are very pleasant and the city is spectacular, utterly transforming.

For me, Chicago is my favourite city out of all those I've visited and I'd give it a 9 or 10 out of 10.