5th of October – Arriving in Chicago

In spite of it being an almost 9-hour flight getting to Chicago was (almost) without issues along the way. Obviously, as we are in Denmark, there were problems with the train signals towards Copenhagen so only one train departed my station every hour which didn’t leave any margin for error going to the airport. Also, the flight didn’t have internet. What is this? The stone age?

Arriving in Chicago it was fairly uneventful getting through immigration. The officer did point out it was suspicious that I had been in Iran in ’17 while eyeing me up and down, and I had just started worrying about if this would be the end of the trip for me, until he continued grinning pointing out the suspicious part was that I still had my head on my shoulders. Hah-hah. Humor of airport security. 

Arriving in Chicago.

It took a bit to find the train to the city – it required a trip across terminals with the airport train before I could get settled into a seat on the train that took me on a 40-minute ride to the city center. From there it was a 5-minute walk from there to get to the hotel. 

The hotel has some weird quirks. There are rooms on floors 3 to 22, except for on floor 9 where the reception and restaurant is located. There are three elevators, and it seems like two of them stop at every three floors. It doesn’t open its doors – it just slows down and stops for maybe 4-6 seconds before it continues for another 3 floors until the next stop. Staying on the 18th floor and wanting to leave it was infuriating that the elevator stopped 5 times before reaching the ground level. The doors never opened until I had to exit. Leaving on the third elevator was mind-blowing – leaving the room and being able to leave the building only a few seconds later? Wild!

Despite having a room on the 18th floor I didn’t have much of a view; there was a taller building across the street blocking the view. Lots of large windows and it looks like most of the interior is apartments. And not all apartments have curtains so you have a fairly unobscured view into other people’s home. As someone who enjoys his privacy that concept gives me the willies. As an example; right now maybe one floor below me there is a woman lying on her carpet in the middle of the living room on her phone. Butt-naked. Not a care in the world. 

One would think that as this height you’d be far away from the street noise, but I suspect that being across from an even taller building the noises are just channeled up past my window giving me the full experience of the traffic. Also doesn’t help that the window doesn’t fully close/seal; I even had an employee up to see if I was doing something wrong but nope – couldn’t fully close, adding a slight draft throughout my stay. Marvelous!