All things great and great
I am in the hotel room and they offer unlimited broadband to their guests. So it seems a perfect opportunity to catch up on my blogging.
I took a BA flight out of the UK on Sunday to Chicago. The mob that booked my flight allowed 1:45 between the connecting flight from Chicago to Milwaulkee. Cleary, this person has never gone to an American airport: It is no 1:45 procedure. Firstly, my flight was about 35 mins late. Then I got to the immigration queue - there's another hour. I am so late that by this stage I am almost relaxed (I mean, what are you going to do?).
So I hop the train to get to the domestic terminal and it is bedlam; O'hare airport in Chicago is no picnic. I can't see a customer service desk anywhere. So I latch onto a woman who is taking care of the luggage for American Airline and she is very, very nice. In fact, she is the only person I like in the whole airport. I mean, the immigration officials were rude in the extreme and the woman monitoring the line was, at best, unforgiving. Anyway, this nice lady tells me that the gate for my flight has closed and that I will need to get on the next flight, which is 4 hrs later. I do some running around to see if there is another option to get to Milwaulkee. The guy at the nearby train station knows less than his middle name and I did not realise there might be a bus option. So I wait the 4 hours for the 19 minute flight north from Chicago to Milwaukee.
But before I get to wait in relative relaxation, I need to get through the domestic airlines' security check point. So again I line up, but it is only about a 15 minute line. I get to the front where the decidely camp security guy tells me 'Oh ... were checking you out' in the manner of Queer Eye for a Straight Hero. At this point, the guys checking baggage on the xray machine tell me they are going to go through my baggage and that I must keep my distance. So my wallet, passport, phone, laptop and all my important documentation are laying splayed across the checking counter while I am let behing one of those barrier-seatbelts. The guy who check out my person (you know, he runs a hand held scanner over me and pads me down) is a pretty good guy, but all this time I keep thinking that I find it unusual that I - a 32 year old agnostic accountant who was more than cooperative with all officials at the airport - have been identified as anything remote resembling a security threat.
Still, I am as nice as I can be to whomever I come in contact with. It is not that I am a nice guy. It is not even that I am a patient guy. No, it is more that the threat of a body cavity search is enough to temper ones enthusiasm for any sort of retaliatory comment or, for that matter, gesture.
So I get to the gate which my plane is due to leave from and I kill my remaining two hours by reading a bit of Bill Bryson. 3o mins before my plane is due to leave it starts boarding. I hand over my ticket, at which point I am told I am on stand by. Stand by. If I had known that, I'd would have found an alternate way to get to Milwaukee rather than gamble I would be able to get on this flight. Who the hell gets on a flight when they are on stand by anyway? Turns out that I did. Glad that I did, too becaue I was about to explode and the guy at the gate knew it.
I land in Milwaulkee at about 10pm. I had missed the opportnity of being greeted by my limo driver holding a sign with my name on it. In fact, I have no idea as to how I am going to get to the hotel. Certainly, there are no taxis around. Turn's out that there is a shuttle service running from the airport and I can tell you that the service was great.
I can say, though, that I was not the happiest chappy upon arriving at my hotel at 11:00pm.
My hotel room is huge, but that is only the begining of the 'huge' theme. The roads are wide, wide, wide. The houses are very big. There are huge distance between everything. The office I am working at reminds me of a Bunnings hardware store. The pharmacy across the road is the size of a small department store. And then there is the food.
Now, maybe it is where I am located at the moment, but I can't say that the food does it for me. Fried food features large. I had a dish today that featured pita bread, but the bread was cut in fingers and looked more like a fried potato chip. I got balsamic on my salad, but it had the consistancy of tomato sauce. I had a great entree last night - a mexican number - but I was full as a goog by the time I got to the main. And the main was a bit rough: a blue cheese beef burger which sounded much better than it was ... something not quite right with the blue cheese. More mould than goodness ... I can't put my finger on it. The meals a big and the meals are, well, complex and big flavoured. But all I keep seeing (and tasting) are examples where more is not more.
But this sounds all rather negative, doesn't it? The upside is this: as a whole, I've found everyone to be friendly and helpful (other than the hotel desk staff). And charming in a way that is hard to describe, but warmth has something to do with it. Politeness seems to be prevelant too. I am sure that part of that has to do with being the foreigner in a strange land, but I don't care about the reasons, rather the outcome. Today I have had dinner with a mob from the workplace and had a great time.
One of the other guys over here with me (who I had not met before the trip) seems to be up for a beer and a look-see, so I have a drinking buddy. I have been working hard during the day but I am having a fairly good time as well. I will try to head into Chicago on the weekend. Look out for the pics
I took a BA flight out of the UK on Sunday to Chicago. The mob that booked my flight allowed 1:45 between the connecting flight from Chicago to Milwaulkee. Cleary, this person has never gone to an American airport: It is no 1:45 procedure. Firstly, my flight was about 35 mins late. Then I got to the immigration queue - there's another hour. I am so late that by this stage I am almost relaxed (I mean, what are you going to do?).
So I hop the train to get to the domestic terminal and it is bedlam; O'hare airport in Chicago is no picnic. I can't see a customer service desk anywhere. So I latch onto a woman who is taking care of the luggage for American Airline and she is very, very nice. In fact, she is the only person I like in the whole airport. I mean, the immigration officials were rude in the extreme and the woman monitoring the line was, at best, unforgiving. Anyway, this nice lady tells me that the gate for my flight has closed and that I will need to get on the next flight, which is 4 hrs later. I do some running around to see if there is another option to get to Milwaulkee. The guy at the nearby train station knows less than his middle name and I did not realise there might be a bus option. So I wait the 4 hours for the 19 minute flight north from Chicago to Milwaukee.
But before I get to wait in relative relaxation, I need to get through the domestic airlines' security check point. So again I line up, but it is only about a 15 minute line. I get to the front where the decidely camp security guy tells me 'Oh ... were checking you out' in the manner of Queer Eye for a Straight Hero. At this point, the guys checking baggage on the xray machine tell me they are going to go through my baggage and that I must keep my distance. So my wallet, passport, phone, laptop and all my important documentation are laying splayed across the checking counter while I am let behing one of those barrier-seatbelts. The guy who check out my person (you know, he runs a hand held scanner over me and pads me down) is a pretty good guy, but all this time I keep thinking that I find it unusual that I - a 32 year old agnostic accountant who was more than cooperative with all officials at the airport - have been identified as anything remote resembling a security threat.
Still, I am as nice as I can be to whomever I come in contact with. It is not that I am a nice guy. It is not even that I am a patient guy. No, it is more that the threat of a body cavity search is enough to temper ones enthusiasm for any sort of retaliatory comment or, for that matter, gesture.
So I get to the gate which my plane is due to leave from and I kill my remaining two hours by reading a bit of Bill Bryson. 3o mins before my plane is due to leave it starts boarding. I hand over my ticket, at which point I am told I am on stand by. Stand by. If I had known that, I'd would have found an alternate way to get to Milwaukee rather than gamble I would be able to get on this flight. Who the hell gets on a flight when they are on stand by anyway? Turns out that I did. Glad that I did, too becaue I was about to explode and the guy at the gate knew it.
I land in Milwaulkee at about 10pm. I had missed the opportnity of being greeted by my limo driver holding a sign with my name on it. In fact, I have no idea as to how I am going to get to the hotel. Certainly, there are no taxis around. Turn's out that there is a shuttle service running from the airport and I can tell you that the service was great.
I can say, though, that I was not the happiest chappy upon arriving at my hotel at 11:00pm.
My hotel room is huge, but that is only the begining of the 'huge' theme. The roads are wide, wide, wide. The houses are very big. There are huge distance between everything. The office I am working at reminds me of a Bunnings hardware store. The pharmacy across the road is the size of a small department store. And then there is the food.
Now, maybe it is where I am located at the moment, but I can't say that the food does it for me. Fried food features large. I had a dish today that featured pita bread, but the bread was cut in fingers and looked more like a fried potato chip. I got balsamic on my salad, but it had the consistancy of tomato sauce. I had a great entree last night - a mexican number - but I was full as a goog by the time I got to the main. And the main was a bit rough: a blue cheese beef burger which sounded much better than it was ... something not quite right with the blue cheese. More mould than goodness ... I can't put my finger on it. The meals a big and the meals are, well, complex and big flavoured. But all I keep seeing (and tasting) are examples where more is not more.
But this sounds all rather negative, doesn't it? The upside is this: as a whole, I've found everyone to be friendly and helpful (other than the hotel desk staff). And charming in a way that is hard to describe, but warmth has something to do with it. Politeness seems to be prevelant too. I am sure that part of that has to do with being the foreigner in a strange land, but I don't care about the reasons, rather the outcome. Today I have had dinner with a mob from the workplace and had a great time.
One of the other guys over here with me (who I had not met before the trip) seems to be up for a beer and a look-see, so I have a drinking buddy. I have been working hard during the day but I am having a fairly good time as well. I will try to head into Chicago on the weekend. Look out for the pics
posted by bloggerpaul at
7:42 PM
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