As Random Thoughts part 1 indicated that I don't travel very often, usually no more than 100 miles away from home. But sometimes life leads you to places that you never dreamed of going, and this time it led me to Chicago.
It has been some 13 years since I last boarded a plane. Some people suggested that I drive to Chicago instead of flying but there were two major flaws with that line of thinking:
-I absolutely hate driving. My car is not comfortable enough to allow me sitting in one position for more than an hour. I am also a conservative when it comes to driving long periods of time, the more I'm on the road the more pissed off I am with other driver and more prone to accidents. It's law of large numbers, its a fact. If those weren't enough then after driving 6 hours to the other side of the state had proven my theory nicely.
-I hate driving in the city. You could bundle this with I hate driving overall but a nice cruise in the country side is nothing like driving in the city, and in this case in Chicago.
That being said I chose to fly to the windy city. Since I haven't done this in a long time there were a few observations along the way.
-don't fucking pay for all your bags. It's a fucking rip off, big time. Unless you enjoy paying 30 dollars for a bag then I suggest carrying at least one or two with you. But the problems is the airline check in system isn't exactly very user friendly, it keeps asking you to pay for this and that sometimes you miss click and paid for something you don't even know.
-After 9/11 they have really upped the security at airports. Okay it's nothing like dogs and FBI agents standing around but I didn't realize you can't bring water bottles on with you anymore.
-After boarding the plane everything is pretty uneventful. The plane ride only took about 50 minutes, much less stressful than what would be 8 hours of driving. I didn't get lost in Chicago O'Hara airport like some people suggested, and my supposed limo service turned out to be a Russian dude driving a Mercedes. But everything worked out pretty nicely.
The hotel was pretty nice. It had 2 dinning services and my room had an 40 inch HDTV. One thing I don't get is why every hotel out there all have a copy of the bible? And they all look exactly the same too. Other than that the week in windy city was pretty boring, we didn't get to see much of the city not that I really cared. After all it was a business trip not a pleasure vacation. One thing that was very interesting to me was that since I don't travel much I don't meet a lot of people, but this trip had many others that were from all over the country. It really opened my eyes talking to them. From an Italian dude from Brooklyn, NYC to a good old country boy from Alabama, everyone was cool to talk to.
Chicago seems like an ages ago now that I am back, but it definitely went a lot better than I initially predicted.
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