FlyerTalk Forums - Weekend in Chicago

What with a double-miles and low-fares intro on offer, I decide to check out the Windy City for a weekend.

Flight I: CHA-ORD (AA4418)
Early-morning departure. Routine flight.

Chicago
Catch the shuttle to my hotel, the Courtyard O'Hare. There is a bowling alley next door. Considering what happened later, I should have brought my ball...

Amazingly, they have a room--a king non-smoker, no less--before 8 AM! Granted, it's at the farthest point from the lobby, but with emergency exit right there, so I can deal.

After recovering from the early-morning flight, I determine that the "fitness center" in the CY is entirely inadequate, and that the Y in the town where I'm staying is way too far to walk, I catch the shuttle back and lay out the $9 for the ORD Hilton's place. It turns out to be way nicer than I'd expected in terms of the facilities, but the people were nowhere near as nice as what I'm used to back home (not mean, mind you, just reserved). Then back to the hotel to dump my bag, and back to the el to start exploring the city.

Lunch was the flagship Giordano's. The wait was terrible, but the pizza was worth it. (I might not even have bothered had I realized how close my hotel was to another of their locations....)

Based on the limited time I had, I knew I could only explore one part of town, and picked the Mag Mile. Made quite a few discoveries there:
(1) Large parts of that area are just plain too upscale for my tastes. I much prefer West Edmonton Mall to that kind of shopping region.
(2) Just because the address is on Michigan does not mean it's really on Michigan. I recalled seeing a listing for the Ghirardelli soda fountain as being at 830 North Michigan. Examination of the block from the other side of the street revealed no evidence of it. In despair, I crossed the street to Borders--and then noticed that it was in fact there, halfway to Wabash along the cross-street!
(3) There are actually about 20 different colors of M&M. You can find them all at the FAO Schweetz store in (I think) Water Tower Place.
(4) Apparently, you can get wonderful popcorn from some little place called Garrett. The line was about 100 people long every time I passed.

After all that, it was time for the evening's activity--History Repaints Itself at Second City e.t.c. The show was, in a word, disgusting. Liberal and gratuitous use of profanity throughout, along with constant crude sexual "humor," had me debating for quite some time whether to stick around. Finally, when one joke used "I hate God!" as the punchline, I had had enough and walked out.

Now for the next challenge--getting back to the hotel. I had been told that one should not ride the el late at night, so I went looking for a payphone to call a taxi. This was not an easy task. Eventually, I saw one in an unlit area. Using it and then waiting for the cab to come seemed an even dumber idea than mass transit. I was at that point also right at a bus stop with several normal people waiting, so I hopped on the 72 westbound and made the connection to the Blue Line, with the help of a random Chinese guy (they don't make the stations easy to find in Chicago...)

Next day, I oversleep a bit and am late to my next planned activity, the morning service at Moody Church. I had heard their pastor many times on the radio, and would finally be getting to hear him in person. Quite a good sermon on time management, and I also discovered that he is Canadian (from a back-of-beyond town in Saskatchewan). Also find out my mother had spaced on me--she assured me the church was in the 400 block of LaSalle, when it's really in the 1600 block! (In Chicago, a number corresponds to a centifurlong, so this meant I would have missed by a mile and a half...)

From there onto another bus, which at one point stops so suddenly as to send a gallon of milk scooting 2/3 of the way up the bus! The passengers theorize that a woman singing "Kiss Me" (by Sixpence None the Richer) in the back was the cause...

Then on to the last of my planned activities--the Cubs game at Wrigley Field. The place is a true baseball experience, from the still-mostly-manual scoreboard, to the team flags atop it (in standings order, no less), to truly knowledgeable fans. By the time I got in, the Diamondbacks were already ahead 1-0. and it only got worse--not only could the Cubs batters not handle the Big Unit, neither could the pitcher (he hit a two-RBI single in the fourth). I left with 'Zona leading 4-0 after five.

Back to downtown, and a search for an OTB outlet I had seen earlier. The phonebook indicated that the two downtown ones were both well south of anywhere I remembered being, and indeed I never did find it. So went back to Ghirardelli for another round of ice cream (their chocolate ice cream is a bit bitter for my tastes--Mayfield reigns supreme on that one--but the cookies-and-cream is second only to Gorin's).

Then back to the airport. A bit of an adventure there, as I had a great deal of trouble finding the entrance to Chicago/State due to construction. At least the "Ley Ajuste Andino parade" on Chicago Avenue had ended by that point...

Flight II: ORD-CHA (AA4417)
Check-in is uneventful, although there has been a gate change. Head for probably my final Admiral's Club visit (since my card is from CP), check email, call home, go eat. The adventure begins...

I knew I wanted either a burger or a pizza. Back in G, the only place that has pizzas--doesn't. And the service at the burger place is intolerably slow, so I head back to the McD's in H. (In the meantime, I had seen my flight disappear from the monitor! A call to the 800# indicated a 10-minute delay and another gate change.)

That done, I observed some gates from which non-US flights were leaving. The flight info alternated between English and French on flights to Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Brussels. However, the word "Weather" didn't change, and the temp. was given in Fahrenheit only. (No Flemish on the Brussels monitor, btw...) Also, US and Belgian flags marked the Brussels gate, but no maple-leafs for the transborders.

Back to G, and still no sign of the plane (even though the monitor says we're boarding http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif ). Another call to the 800# reveals we are now delayed 30 minutes due to a delay down the line. This proves to be accurate. After a routine flight, we end up at home with the same delay. Which creates one more problem--most of the airport staff is gone, so the pilot has to help unload the gate-checked bags!

All in all, to borrow Catman's rating system (I live with four felines myself), one paw up for the Courtyard, one paw down for American Eagle, and a hairball to Second City e.t.c.