Solution? I think so...

For those of you following my Chicago housing drama, I believe I've had a stroke of brilliance. This morning I managed to find a hotel (of unknown quality...but a "national brand" according to Hotwire) which would sell me a room for $70/night, for a grand total of $500. That was still more than I wanted to pay, but much more in price range. I started to consider maybe just paying it.

Also, I got a couple of phone calls this morning with advice to bug members of the church (who are strangers) to let me stay at their house. But that's kind of awkward. I decided I would be willing to pay whatever strangers I found a couple hundred bucks to stay at their house, seeing as how they don't know me and they're putting me up for the night. But that posed its own problems because I'm a stranger (can I say that enough times?) staying at their house who is keeping who knows what kind of hours as I try to spend quality time with my fiance.

So that put me back at the hotel option. So I searched on different search engine. It brought up a couple of hostels. I don't know why I didn't think of checking for hostels before. Maybe it's because the only hostels I've stayed at are in Europe and I figured it was a European kind of thing. Regardless, I'm now considering staying at a hostel which is only a 10 minute bus ride from Jason. And which is right down town. And which is only $28/night which fits nicely into my price range. Also, it doesn't have a curfew, so I can be on my own schedule. Also, this hostel happens to be the top rated hostel in Chicago, according to US News and World Report and welcomes Girl Scouts (think I'm joking? see for yourself), so I don't need to be worried about any shady characters. I need to sleep on this, but I'm pretty close to just booking myself a room at a hostel.