After 9/11 airline regulations changed and the door to the cockpit of the plane is supposed to always be closed. Here is the view from my seat when I got on the plane. They even took a small boy up to the cockpit to meet the pilots. Getting up at 4am wasn't pleasant but nothing I couldn't deal with. The trip to the airport and plane ride were uneventful. I landed in Chicago and got off the plane right at the baggage claim area. That never happens.
Before I left I wrote down the name of a limo company to take me to the hotel. Yes, you can take a taxi but depending on the time of day you can be sitting in traffic forever and that can make a taxi ride very expensive. The limo is a fixed rate so I thought it was a smart move. When I called the limo company they didn't know anything about the rate I was quoting (that I found on the Internet) but they honored it. After waiting 20 minutes the limo arrived-they had called the driver at home and made him come in to get me. We weren't ten minutes from the airport when a tire blew on the car. Now I am sitting on the side of the highway for the next half hour while he is changing it.
Finally arrive at the hotel around 10:30am and can't get into my room but they tell me around 1:30. No problem. Stores are calling and I was hungry. Lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, roam around Macy's and a few other stores and it is now 1:00. I walk back to the hotel and they still don't have a room for me. There are now 15 people on the list ahead of me to check in early. I asked why I wasn't on the list at 10:30-the manager had no answer but did tell me that at 3:00 I would have a room. I trudge off to Nordstroms and then onto another Macy's. I get back to the hotel around 3:30. Miss Schilthuis, here are the keys to your room-2012. I get to the room and there is a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door. Weird but many other rooms had them so I thought it was something the cleaning staff did to mark the clean rooms. I knock on the door and no answer so I open it. There are people in the room!! What? I pull the door closed and run to the elevator. Back down to the lobby (which isn't even on the level you enter the hotel-it was on the 2nd floor). Now they have to find me another room. Because of my troubles I get upgraded to a King bed. Wow!! Thanks!! Anyways, that was all the headaches I had while in Chicago but I was exhausted by the time we had a welcome reception at 7pm.
We had a workshop on blogging yesterday. Blogs are supposed to be no longer than 5 paragraphs. Because of this, I am saving more stories for tomorrow. This rule helps me right now because my bed is calling and I want to go to sleep.
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