Extended Vacation

Wednesday, August 05, 2015
Chicago, Illinois, United States
My darling sister Laura offered to bring me to Dublin AND let me stay the night at her house AND she'd drive me to the airport in the morning. That's all instead of resorting to a middle of night lift to the 4am eireagle bus from Galway to Dublin, so you can already imagine how much I appreciated this.

I barely slept at all, but I appreciated Laura's generosity even more when I got a 2am notification from my (amazing) Google phone that keeps track of my life for me, telling me that my 9:40am flight was delayed two hours . I had just, FINALLY dozed off when my phone rang at 6:18am, just before the original 6:30 alarm, with an automated call from American Airlines, "kindly" "informing" me that my flight was now delayed three hours and fifty five minutes.

So no more sleep. I had breakfast at Laura's and we calmly drove to the airport, where I may have been the last person to check in, but whatever. I got an €8 food voucher as compensation for the delay. WOW GUYS, THAT REALLY MAKES UP FOR SLEEP DEPRIVATION, THANKS!!!

Anyway, you know the airport. Nothing interesting happened besides getting to use my Canadian passport to skip the massive whopping Disneyland-esque queue for US immigration. I actually, literally did almost the whole thing myself. Scanned my passport, took my own photo, checked off my declaration. The immigration officer just showed me a photo of my checked bag to confirm it was mine, and I was off! To sit in a plane on the Tarmac.

Literally four hours and thirteen minutes after my flight was dues to leave, we finally trundled onto the runway .

I got a seat in the quieter economy extra cabin, so that was nice, but I was dead centre of the plane so no leg stretching for me. And there were no little TVs for each person! And no on board wifi!! What is this, the 60s?!?!?

They showed three films, two of which I had actually wanted to see and missed when they were in the cinema - Age of Adeline and Tomorrowland. There was something about macaque monkeys in the middle but I was in and out of consciousness during that. Not asleep, just desperately wishing I was. We also got pretzels, a good penne pasta meal, an ice cream and a pizza snack, and all the drinks we wanted, so I couldn't fault them for that. I had bought a sandwich at the airport with my €8 voucher - it literally only covered the sandwich and a tiny bar of chocolate - but I wasn't hungry on board.

I happened to be surrounded by people who were transferring to San Francisco, but because of the massive delay, they were all moved around to different connecting flights. One was being sent to Dallas, another to LA. Like, what.

My bag was one of the first off (due to being late on, I assume, though they also said we were delayed because they had to "pull the bags" of some passengers that didn't board) and it didn't take long to get onto the blue line CTA L train (just "train" from hereon) . I nearly had a panic attack passing through some dodgy areas and watching the lanes and lanes of traffic driving on the wrong side of the road. How will I cope?!?!?

Got to the hostel easily enough and once I'd sorted out my stuff in my 8 bed messy female dorm, I headed out again because I was afraid if I sat down I'd never wake up again. I bought a ticket for the skydeck in Willis Tower (Sears Tower, for old people) at the hostel because it's a money saving idea, and headed off.

Two of the big food companies in Chicago are Giordano's deep dish pizza and Garrett's popcorn. I passed outlets of both, but there was no way I could eat. Nearly sick with tiredness.

The lift/elevator in Willis was VERY squished, more than anywhere I've ever been I think, bar the salt mines in Poland. It's cute, but it's kinda sad because it's just not that tall anymore and I think they're envious!!!

The views were a little hazy, but very cool. My GOD but that's a big frickin lake, is Lake Michigan!!! You can't see the other side! I could see all the buildings you recognise from films like Batman (omg the train over the streets!!!), Jupiter Ascending, Sense8... Everything. It's almost as cool as Vancouver.

There's this SkyDeck too, where you walk into a little glass box attached to the side of the building and looking down below, it was crowded with Asian teenagers taking selfies and doing push-ups . And also not very exciting. But it's ticked off my list now.

I walked around a bit then, through Millenium Park, where there was an enormous free Mozart Piano Concerto concert taking place with full orchestra. It was lovely, but at that point I was getting a bit fuzzy and it felt like walking in a dream state or something.

I found the Bean/Cloud Gate next, and took some wacky reflective photos. Then I started to dehydrate. Like nearly shrivel up from lack of liquid. It was then of course really difficult to find like a drugstore or 7eleven that sold drinks. Everywhere was fancy eateries. Eventually I got some water and sprite and sat in some little plaza where a guy was powerhosing the "floor" (ground, dudes, come on.) and I ate my free expensive sandwich from Dublin airport and decided I couldn't handle awakeness any longer.

The hostel guy had told me that on Wednesdays there are fireworks at Navy Pier, but they were at 9:30 and it still wasn't even 8. I walked around a bit on Michigan Avenue (not the magnificent side) and saw some twilight kayakers struggle with the flow in the river. The life around the city was actually lovely at that point. People aren't rushing around really. There are a lot of homeless people and creepy guys sitting around commenting on girls, but the normal people are just fine. Not friendly, but not pushy or arrogant or anything. I like it.

I went back to the hostel then and made friends with three Australians and a Japanese girl in my room. Then I had a shower. I feel cleaner than I did walking around the streets and in the humidity, but there's nothing like a shared hostel shower to make you feel like cleaning yourself is actually pointless.

Then, UNCONSCIOUSNESS!!!
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Comments

Romy
2015-08-10

Great to read all your travel tales again Mary. Hope you enjoy your stay.
(Stay? Not a good choice of word, is it ????)

Margie McNamara
2015-08-10

You're "on the road again".... Mary. I'm looking forward to reading about your travels. Stay safe. Mammy

Sheryl
2015-08-10

Glad to see your off and running again.
I always laugh when I read your take on things .... in a good way :).
Have fun lady!

2025-02-11

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