Part 5
LAS-ORD - 8:35 -14:20
UA618 757-200
So Friday morning arrived and it was time to start heading East. Psychologically, even though we were spending a full weekend in Chicago, it felt like we were starting our journey home. We checked out through the TV, which was nice and convenient, and got a cab back to the airport. As per our arrival a few days earlier, the fare was $20 inclusive of tip.
Our flights home were booked as J class, which meant domestic F class on United. We checked in at the First Class desk where there was very little queuing required. At check-in, the agent, being polite and making small talk, asked M and I if we were brothers (He’s a year older and we share the same surname). ‘No’, we replied. ‘Cousins then?’ she asked ‘Nope! We’re not related at all, it’s just a very common surname where we come from!” Basically, if you added together all the Jones, Williams, Roberts, Evans, Hughes and Morgans in Wales, you’d probably have around 75% of the population!!
Priority check-in was a breeze, and just a word about the TSA. I had heard a lot about the security checks at US Airports, with internet reports etc making these TSA guys sound like the Stasi! Frankly, I saw no difference in the security procedures in the US to the ones I encountered last week on a UK domestic flight from Manchester to Belfast. In fact, I found the TSA staff to be quite amicable and professional at every airport.
I was quite disappointed that an F ticket didn’t get us any lounge access, and if I’m honest, I probably wouldn’t pay extra for the in-flight F domestic product on this flight either. I was in 3B, and yes, you get nice legroom, but the breakfast was nothing to write home about (cereal or omelette with the usual breakfast extras), and someone had apparently downloaded the wrong files or videos or something, so there would be no IFE on this flight. I’ve not researched the difference in price between Y and F on this flight on a paid ticket, but if the difference was anything more than a £100 (which I assume it is), I honestly wouldn’t bother.
The flight itself was fine though, getting into a nice and sunny ORD a little early. When I say nice and sunny, it was about 75 degrees, which was nice and bearable compared to the 104 degrees we had left behind in Vegas!
ORD is a huge airport, but pretty well signed in general, and we found the CTA Metro (blue line) station easily enough, and bought a 3 day pass at a very reasonable $14. We were staying in Greektown, which was about a 10 minute walk from the Sears (or Willis if you must!) Tower. The blue line took us within a block of our lodgings, which was good because it felt like our luggage got heavier and heavier as the days went by.
June had arrived in Chicago with not a single cloud in tow, so it was a perfect afternoon to go to the top of Sears, especially as we were staying so close. The view from the top was fantastic, Lake Michigan goes on foreeever! I stood on the Skydeck as well, which is a really cool idea, but only for a few seconds to get some photos!
The Skydeck
A must-do while in Chicago was some deep-dish pizza, so once we were back on terra firma, we headed across the road to Giordano’s. Unfortunately, we misjudged the size of the pizzas in this place. The menu offered three size options; small, regular, large, with ‘small’ being the suggested size for 1-2 people. We thought that a ‘small’ each would be the best choice, assuming that the pizzas we were seeing coming out of the kitchen for tables of 3-4 people were ‘regular’ sized. Oh, no! Those huge pizza pies were ‘small’ ones! I went for pineapple while ‘M’ had shrimp on his. As they were freshly made to order, there was a 35-40 minute wait, so we had a plate of fries while we waited, which of course was a mistake! Now I can eat…..a lot, but I was not prepared for this pizza, it simply fills your stomach in just a few bites. The base is basically like a pie crust, not your usual pizza base, and the cheese is about an inch thick! I managed to eat about half of mine, the rest being boxed and handed to a homeless person on Michigan Avenue – I wouldn’t like placing that much food into a dumpster. Obviously I would have enjoyed the pizza better if I hadn’t gorged on fries before its arrival, but I don’t think I would ever want to eat a whole ‘small’ pizza in any case; more cheese than can possibly be healthy, and the sauce was a little too salty for my liking.
The monster pizza
Saturday was spent sight-seeing, the free Zoo at Lincoln Park, Cloud Gate (the Bean), Navy Pier, Start of Route 66 etc being visited on another warm, sunny day. I was pretty tired by the evening, but we did venture down to a Chinatown bakery for some sweet delights. I had never visited a Chinese bakery before and had no idea they made such a variety of cakes. I guess I had never considered that aspect of Chinese cuisine before; like most people I suspect, my experience of Chinese food is the fortnightly takeaway!
On Sunday, we saw the White Sox play the Seattle Mariners, and beat them quite comfortably, the White Sox pitcher on fantastic form. It was a rather sparsely attended game, without the same entertainment factor as the Phillies game we had attended days earlier, which was a shame, given the positive result.
White Sox v Mariners
Tomorrow we would begin the long journey home, and given the 13:40 departure from ORD, there wouldn’t be much time to do much in the morning. So after the game we headed straight back downtown to Michigan Avenue, for some last minute gift-shopping. I went to the Apple store and bought one of the latest Ipads for my dear wife (I told you I would get her something nice!) and some t-shirts etc for nieces and nephews. If I’d had my head screwed on right earlier in the trip, I could have popped over to Delaware while in Philly and got the Ipad tax-free, but what can you do! It was still cheaper than back home, so that’s some consolation!
On our very last night in the States, we had a quiet curry at an even quieter Indian restaurant. It was perfectly adequate, but we certainly realised that ‘bhuna’ and ‘tikka massala’ mean very different things in the UK to what they do in the States (and from experience, the UK’s Indian curries are very different to pretty much every country in Europe as well).