Hey, MAPHers! We here at MAPH Central are gearing up for the year ahead and can’t believe Colloquium is less than three weeks away! It’s time to get excited and also to get prepared for the quarter to begin: it’s going to be a whirlwind! Here’s your second installment of things to do once you get to Chicago:
Get a Bike
Despite the winter cold, for much of the year Hyde Park is an extremely bike-friendly neighborhood! Having a bike can cut down commutes within Hyde Park to just a few minutes and is a great way of beating rush-hour traffic. It’s also a great way to get to the Loop for free. Using the Lakefront Trail you can get from Promontory Point to Navy Pier in under an hour, and without crossing a single road. Bikes can be used to navigate the rest of the city, too: CTA buses have bike racks, and bikes are allowed on CTA trains during non-peak hours.
Cheap secondhand bikes can be found on Marketplace, Craigslist or at Blackstone Bicycle Works, a youth education program based at the Experimental Station just a few blocks south of campus. Blackstone is a bike shop dedicated to promoting ecological practices and empowering youth, teaching useful skills to young people from Chicago’s south side.
Chicago has a bike sharing system, Divvy, which offers a $55 student membership. You can also purchase a bike to use for just one trip. Be forewarned, though: if you don’t return the bike to another Divvy station within 30 minutes (which can be a tough deadline to meet – almost impossible if you are biking to the Loop) you will accrue overtime fees, which can add up. The bikes are also a bit bulkier than one you might purchase. All things considered, if you plan on biking regularly, purchasing a bike would be the better option.
Stock Up On Groceries
Hyde Park does not have an overabundance of places to buy groceries, so it can be a good idea to figure out your best strategy for grocery shopping before the busy Autumn Quarter gets underway. Despite its convenience, eating out can get expensive, so it’s advisable to plan ahead, stock up on staple items and think through maintainable ways to prepare meals.
- Treasure Island, located in the plaza at the corner of E 55th and S Lake Park Avenue, is Hyde Park’s biggest grocery store. The prices are not cheap, but it’s really HP’s only one-stop-shop grocery place. (We’re still not sure what’s so European about “America’s Most European Supermarket.”)
- Hyde Park Produce, in the Kimbark shopping plaza on 53rd Street, often has great deals on produce, even if the other items are in general more expensive than TI.
- Open Produce on 55th by S Cornell Ave is a great place for produce, international foods, and cheap breads. It is a smaller place – probably not the place to buy all your – but nonetheless useful and reasonably priced. It’s the only produce shop open late – till 2 AM! Woohoo! – so it’s the perfect place for picking up a late-night, healthy snack when you forgot to go to the store during the day…not that we’ve ever done that…
Stop by the MAPH Office to Meet the Staff!
Come to Classics 117 to introduce yourself and meet the MAPH staff! Maren, Jane, Jess, Clancey, and Michael are in the MAPH office 9-4 weekdays. They are all valuable resources for you throughout the year, and they’re excited to meet everyone!
(Clancey proudly displaying our delicious coffee. Nevermind the sign-in-the-works in the background.)
While you’re here you can enjoy some of our high-quality New England Coffee, which will be here for you whenever you need an extra bit of awakeness.
You can also get acquainted with the MAPH lounge, which is a prime place to study, procrastinate from studying, talk and commiserate with fellow students, take a nap on the couch, eat lunch, or just admire the newly color-organized bookshelves. (The possibilities are seemingly endless.)
You can also meet your mentors as well as some of your fellow MAPHers who are already in town at our first official/unofficial pre-program meet-up at Z&H MarketCafe next Wednesday, September 2nd at noon. There will be free sandwiches, cookies, pastries, coffee and smoothies to entice you. No need to RSVP – all you need to do is meet us at Z&H, at 1323 East 57th Street. We hope to see some of you there!
One last small tip:
Have All Your Important Documents With You
It can be helpful to go ahead and make sure you have your social security card, passport, etc. with you if you are looking for student employment during the year or just to be prepared for job hunting etc later on. It could potentially save you the headache of wondering “now where did I put that?” or having to ask your parent or partner to overnight your social security card when you do end up needing it (yup, I did that. Thanks, mom). 
That’s all for now! Enjoy the next couple of weeks, and we look forward to meeting all of you at the opening reception on September 13th!
Your Mentors,
Jess, Michael and Clancey