It’s now Sunday evening, but the blog is up to Saturday. However, I can’t continue without noting where I am sitting currently – or rather I think I’ll show you.
One of the views from Chicago 360, showing a large portion of Lake Michigan.
I’m sitting in the Sip & View Bar part of Chicago 360 at the top of the John Hancock building – and the view is impressive! But more on that when I catch up.
When I got up Saturday morning, after trying to get more sleep in bed – the time difference still isn’t nailed down. I decided I needed to work out what I wanted to do for the few days I had in Chicago. So I used Uber Eat’s (yet again) or order my Starbucks and settled down with my passable latte and bagel with cream cheese to plan, book and spend some money.
I had originally planned to go to a baseball game at Wrigley Field and that still sounded like a good idea so I booked that for Sunday. I spend almost double on the parking that I did on the game but it’s an experience, right?
Something else I was pretty sure I wanted to do was the Museum of Science and Industry, so I booked that too. With that sorted I headed off to the museum. I must say, I don’t love driving in Chicago, particularly in the rain. Maybe it just that it’s the most urban driving I’ve done but there’s a bit too much traffic. There’s also a lot of routes and specific lanes to get into – I’ve missed them more than once.
The museum was great, especially the fact that they had a special 007 exhibit on at the moment. If you know me at all, you’ll know that I really enjoy a bit of ‘Bond, James Bond’. What I didn’t realise about the museum but is that for a few of the exhibits you had to reserve a ticket. I should have done that when I arrived, but not realising I was faced with a long wait (or no times left) so I missed out on seeing some of the exhibits which was disappointing. However, the trains, the plane and 007 were all highlights.
After that it was Target – it’s a shopping trip, you really don’t care. All I want to note is that they were sold out of Umbrella’s. I knew I would forgot to pack something this trip and that’s definitely one thing I forgot.
Then it was home and food. The plan was to have a short nap and maybe do something that evening. It didn’t happen there was just more sleep really.
After leaving the museum I heard from Keith (IYKYK) and he gave me a few tips of things worth doing. Navy Pier, which was already on my list and the John Hancock building (where I am now).
Well that’s Saturday. I’ve probably got time to make a start on Sunday before I finish my red wine and have to relinquish this excellent view!
So it’s now Sunday morning and I’m once again sitting in my room at my AirBnB. My last post got me up to the early hours of Friday morning. Check-out at Hilton was a leisurely 12 noon, however expecting an earlier arrival I had booked my hire car for 10am. I was willing to push this a little but not too much so I got up just after 9.30. Packed, checked out, walked, trained and finally found the multi-modal facility at O’Hare which is where the hire cars were.
Because I signed up for the Avis loyalty program I got to pick my car up from the Preferred Centre upstairs, though I’m not sure that was any quicker – I reckon I was in the line and waiting for my car for almost an hour. The good news is in that time it was confirmed that I could get into my AirBnB early (for a small fee) which helped a lot. I eventually got my car – in typical US fashion bigger than the class I booked, but I like it – it’s a Mazda CX-50.
My car – still in the Avis lot
I got my car play all setup and headed off to my AirBnB. Driving in the US is ok, some parts of it is better than others. I think I prefer the longer drives on interstates and similar as it requires less conscious effort. The bit I like least is just figuring out how to avoid hitting things – being on the other side of the car gives you a different perspective. I arrived at the AirBnB – it’s basic, but OK for the cost. I would have preferred a bigger desk, but the bed is comfy.
I was hungry so I got Uber Eats – Popeyes Louisiana Chicken which was good. I’d say it’s pretty similar to KFC. Unsurprising I was tired, so I napped, for longer than I expected but I was tired. I woke up a bit later, about dinner time so I used Uber Eats again, I got some good chicken pesto pasta, but instead of the Mountain Dew I ordered I got a half open bottle of water – I decided not to drink it! Then sleep. Pretty boring day and kind of a waste of my short time in Chicago, but the sooner I can acclimatise to US time the better. This post had photos 🙂 I’ll do Saturday in another post.
So I’m back again, which means I’m travelling again. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it – I haven’t done well at recording my last few trips – heck I did no posts at all for New Zealand. But I’m going to try, because when I do write, I really enjoy looking back at it. I might try and keep the posts briefer and maybe more frequent, but I’m pretty’s sure I’ve said that before!
So here goes, I’m in the US again, for FPS IC 2024 and although I’m sure I’ll be back in future years, I decided to make this year a real holiday trip to, with a view to not doing that so much in future years (or at least for a little while).
I’m currently sitting at my AirBnB in Chicago, on Saturday 2 days after I arrived. Not a lot’s happened so far but let’s go back to the start. I left Perth at 9am Thursday morning, which meant early-ish but nothing too ridiculous. I must say I love the perks of Gold, getting me to the front of the line everywhere. So Qantas Club, flight to Sydney. It was on a 737 which is small but it’s a short flight. We arrived a bit ahead of schedule which was good, no danger of missing my next flight. Transfer to the international terminal was easy, immigration, security (where I had to skull my water bottle that I forgot to empty) then International Business Lounge.
Flight to LA was long, thankfully I got an upgrade to Premium Economy. I would have preferred business but you can’t have everything. The flight left an hour late (we were sitting on the plane for over half an hour after boarding. (Apparently there was some issue with animals we were transporting). This had me a little bit worried about my connection in LA but they said we had a good flight time. Food and service in Premium Economy was good (as with my past experience). Sleep this time wasn’t as good as last time though, I reckon I got about 2, hour blocks and then a longer block of maybe 2.5 hours – not a lot of sleep. (I did doze a little on the Perth to Sydney flight too). Maybe I should have got sleeping pills before I left. We did make pretty good time though, despite our late departure, we only landed about 10 minutes late.
When we landed, it turned out there was no need for stress as my flight to Chicago had been delayed. Immigration was slow, but not unbearably slow – it probably took an hour to get thought. I reckon within about 90 minutes of landing I was seated in the AA Flagship Lounge, thank to on Qantas Gold (Oneworld Sapphire status). It is a nice lounge and certainly a serious contender for (at least some of) my time at LAX before my flight home. The food at this lounge was especially high quality – the pesto fish was one of my favourites.
So eventually it came time to board the delayed flight. I think it was about an hour and a half late and the promised faster flight time didn’t eventuate so we landed at O’Hare just after 1am instead of the 11.30pm promised. By the time I got my bags, walked out the Hilton, checked in and got up to my room it was about 2.30am. As such it was after 3am before I got to sleep, which wasn’t a great start to getting acclimatised to US time – and generally just not enough sleep! That’s the travel leg, so I might leave this post here and pick up the next morning.
