Uber Stress

 

So we said farewell to Philly with a warm feel for a place and people who have pride and love in their town, especially through their sports teams, the buses having Go Eagles on their place sign, the place buzzing over the prospects for their baseball team. Both lost last night. As a Swans fan, I relate to this sporting sense of place, and in this case also the failure piece!

Our final morning walk took us a few blocks away to Rittenhouse Square another urban park in this city come nature reserve. The little birds and squirrels everywhere do keep the place rural and a few narnia esque lamposts, statues, lions, toads, serpents, the usual!

Found a lovely little Jewish deli diner where I had something old, egg and swiss cheese bagel and something new cream cheese blintzes, the latter not something I'll be returning to, all a bit gooey and chewy.

We then got an uber to airport where we encountered a bit of an issue with bag check in as they didn't seem to recognise our reservation but a helpful staffer resolved quickly and in fact we ended up getting checked in quicker than if we'd stayed in line.

It turns out that was the least of our issues as  Chrissi quickly discovered she had left her phone in the uber that took us to the airport and swiftly realised how much of her and our trip was rather dependent on stuff she had in her phone or infact needed her phone for 2 factor authentication.  This immediately became a problem in trying to contact the uber driver as it was all on her account .. on her phone .. which she could only access on my phone with an authentication from her phone .. oh the joy .. we had to also go airside for our flights so it was very much goodbye phone for the time being at least.

Our delayed flight then gave us time to spend pointless money phoning yahoo and agreeing to all kinds of products so she could access her account, including having to send a copy of her passport to them, all from the departure gate. You can imagine this was not a relaxed period of time, but at least meant we had access to key documents for the immediate next steps of our trip, but the word from Uber about getting a phone return felt a long way off.

The flight to Chicago was fully booked, they were offering to pay people to take a later flight, but we had to get into Chicago for Chrissi to pick up her bib for the 5K run tomorrow, and that was one of the things we had needed to access yahoo for the details. Even with the delay we were due to land in Chicago at 3.30 and had 2.5 hrs to get to the convention centre.  We had been put in seats right at the back of the plane which were not the ones we had confirmed, but then randomly, in a 3-3 configuration, an empty seat emerged next to us, and no-one appeared to take it!  On a full flight I didn't quite believe this and even when the plane started to move I still expected someone to randomly appear. A small win, we could spread out a bit, and appreciate the space.  I'd downloaded some Netflix stuff for this flight although I noted you could hook your device into some stuff on the American Airlines entertainment system, BA short haul could learn a bit from that... a coffee and biscuit the limit of our feed though, lucky we had some sweeties.  I also watched the last of the Good Girls Guide to murder, a truly awful series, this is to test that Carys is reading.

Chicago airport is mahoosive, even as we taxied to the terminal there were planes taking off and landing simultaneously on several runways.  I think its the busiest airport in the world?  Even though we were back of the plane we made it off quickly, and then had to navigate through the massive malls that are essentially the arrival terminal  Down to the baggage which was all there, I think today would not have been a good day to have to go through a lost or delayed baggage situation.

Shakily back on track, my phone is now admin central so ordered Uber which appeared promptly and we were on the way to downtown Chicago and the Expo to pick up our race packets.  The traffic on the freeways looked bad and about an hour in I checked with our driver what time he felt we'd arrive, and he said around 5.30, we had 30 minutes grace.  As time passed, our Khazak driver gave us his very interesting life story as an immigrant into the US, family and corruption back home, his variety of ways of making an income, the crime that he has personally experienced in the US, and the post Philly picture was getting a lot darker. As indeed was the outside and 5.30 came and went and he said we'd be another 30 mins.  An extra irritation as really if we couldn't get Chrissis ticket she couldn't run tomorrow.

We arrived at the Expo with 5 mins to spare and had to do a run worthy of strava with luggage to cross what is in effect a small city / stadium to get to the ticket pick up. As we arrived looking far from relaxed an official said we had until 6.30 which proved partially true, Chrissi able to pick her stuff up, me some of my stuff, and one can say the mood in general was not the greatest!

We then had out last Uber of the day, an absolute lunatic from Venezuela who spoke little English but was showing us pictures of his mates being hauled off by ICE agents, and how he can't go back to Venezuela as he will be killed as he was a prison guard and the gangs are after him.  He was an interesting character but part of me just wanted a bit of relaxation by now, and on arrival at our hotel, a welcome glass of wine could not have been any better timed.

The hotel is lovely, our room is lovely and homely, and this is infact where we will be in one place for the longest time, a whole 3 nights!  I wanted a pizza, and googlemaps had a pizzeria next door to the hotel and that was all I needed to hear. We sat out on the heated patio, couple more glasses of wine, and then a simply delicious pizza. Honey, spices, pepperoni, sweet, stingy perfection after a day that was less than perfect.  You gotta love travel!!