From a Distance

Evanston is a university town (Northwestern University, founded by Methodists) on Lake Michigan, some twenty minutes north of where we are staying.

We went back there today to have a look at the dance school where Georgie will have her ballet classes in two weeks' time. The Dance Center Evanston is in a modern mall complex just east of downtown. The director remembered us from our email exchanges and showed us around. It looked very professional and friendly. Georgie's class is "pre-ballet 1", which sounds a bit daunting but should be fun.

We bought her her prescribed light-blue leotard, pink stockings and real leather ballet shoes at the ballet outfitters of Evanston. The very friendly staff member of Allegro Dance Boutique on Central Street told us that normally it is the family's nanny who comes to the shop ... It is that kind of town.

She told us more about the area: Evanston is part of the so-called "North shore communities", an area that became popular with wealthy people who wanted to escape the city for the suburbs, especially after the Second World War. Many large mansions were built. Evanston is the most urban of these communities and the one closest to Chicago.

Well, in fact it is a rather mixed place, as a lot of American towns are. On the way to the ballet shop we drove through some less affluent areas. There was even a homeless man selling the homeless' newspaper not far from Starbucks and the other cafés. He had escaped Englewood, an inner-city area of Chicago where crime is among the highest in the country. He is probably safer in Evanston.

As we were heading for the post-office, we passed the local library branch, which was threatened with closure. There were many signs of support in the neighbouring shops, but the clear trend on Central Street was: more cakes and less books.

The proprietors of the post office were a multilingual middle-aged Caucasian lady and an African-American gentleman. As soon as the lady heard where I was from, she started talking about the Wallander films and Ystad and how Mr Wallander likes to take early morning swims. Apparently, she had a friend of Nordic origins who also always went swimming early in the morning (but in Lake Michigan), and she thought it must be something in the Nordic genes ... As she was talking about Wallander, her colleague took out the official local postal mascot, Molly the doll, to show Georgie. Molly is a paper-eating doll. And he proved that she was, to Georgie's great satisfaction.

We turned to the right outside the post-office and walked, well, Georgie ran, to the playground in Independence Park. There were many forgotten - or perhaps simply left - plastic buckets, spades and fortresses just scattered around in the sand, perfect for the three of us to play with. The wet sand made superb building material.

We left Evanston and our sand castles behind, and headed back south to Uptown.

(J)