Thanks for sharing your perspective, I'll probably come back some day and I will try to think of what you wrote here then :)

Regarding the "murder concern" it was more like being seriously disturbed by it.

The downtown area seemed safe enough for me to stroll around also during night time but waking up to a news reporter somewhat happily announcing that the doctors saved the baby whose pregnant mother just became victim to a drive-by shooting in south Chicago the evening before is just.. I don't know, fucked-up shit like that doesn't happen (often? ever?) where I'm coming from. All in all there where 5 dead and 43 injured over that weekend alone. So that clearly played a role in my remarks regarding Chicago and my feelings towards staying there.