Not exactly midnight and not exactly Georgia, but hey. We play the hand we’re dealt.

I got brave and decided to take a route to Union Station that involved both buses and the El. The Chicago Transit Authority has a Trip Planner on their site where you can put in the time you want to leave, where you are starting and ending, choose how far you are willing to walk, and whether you want the route that is quickest, has the lease number of transfers, or has the least amount of walking. They give you three or four different route possibilities, and I managed to find one that involved the train. So Andrew wrote down the bus stops and where we were headed on the train. We got on the first bus, got transfers and got off at exactly the right place. We got on the train, found out the transfers work there too. We walked up the wrong set of stairs, and ended up on the wrong side of the platform, but the lady there told us to take the train down one stop, cross over the tracks there to the other side and board the correct train there. And we did, everything worked great. So we’re on the train, going going, it’s wobbling, starting, stopping etc etc. Then at some point Andrew starts to get a slightly perplexed look on his face, and finally says, “I don’t think we were supposed to go this far.” We look at each other for a minute. And he says, “Union Station is at the base of the Sears Tower, and that’s way back there.” So I take the directions he wrote down, and I realise that all he wrote down was what it said about the train line as a whole, ie. “The Green Line to Cottage Grove,” which is in fact, the end of the line, not where we needed to go. I pointed out that the bus we were supposed to get on was at Adam’s and something, and there’s a stop on the train at Adam’s and something. So… We got off the train, and waited for another train to come back the other way. Now it’s been something like 20 minutes or something, and we were actually starting to wonder if I was going to miss my train. We were also wondering if the train we just got off was actually going to be the same train, and that we would have to wait until it went all the way to the end of the line and came back. The train finally came the other way (and it wasn’t the same train, heh) and we got on and went to the right stop. We ended up getting on a different bus than the route suggested, but it was the same bus we rode from Union Station when we got to Chicago in the first place, so we knew where it went. We got into the station and found my train.

I showed the lady my ticket, and she said, “Make sure you tell them you’re business class.” So, I followed the other people, and they got on the train at the first open door. Down the way, though, there were conductors waving their arms. So, I went down to them. “I have business class.” “You’re all the way down to the last car before the engine.” So, I got on the train to walk through it, since that’s what we did when we came to Chicago. I walked through two cars, and there was a little metal barrier in the door to the next car. So I got off and got back on and walked through that car. I got to the end of it, and the door was locked. So I had to get off again. The close door in the business car was closed, so I had to walk all the way to the other end of it. I got on, and there were no seats.

…

I said something to a conductor looking guy standing around, and he pointed me to another guy, who told me to have a seat in the dining car, and that they would get everything figured out. He was the guy working the food counter. He sat down to eat some McDonalds before we left, and was talking to me about how everything was probably fine. “Usually someone thinks they have business class, and they don’t. They get their tickets through a travel agent and they say, ‘Oh, we’ll get you first class everything,’ when really they end up with coach and don’t bother to notice.” Then he said that they hadn’t overbooked anything in years. I was still pretty worried. Finally, this getting-things-done, black-woman-attitude conductor came through the car, and said, “What’s wrong.” “No seats.” “Come up here, then, we’ll get it figured out.” She walks to the front of the car and says, “Everyone get out your tickets. I’m checking the tickets.” Normally when they take the tickets, you need ID, so people were grabbing those too, and she says, “I don’t need IDs, I just need tickets.” The dining car guy comes in to tell everyone what they have to drink and eat, and he says something about coming on back, things were ready, and she says, “Hold on, now, I’m checking tickets first.” The second row that she got to, she says, “These are for the 25th. This is the 24th. These are for tomorrow.” “What?” There was some back and forth, and she was saying something about having people with correct tickets waiting for these seats, and she says loudly to me, “Come up here. This is your seat.” And the ladies said, “So what do we do?” And she says quite bluntly, “You’re sitting in coach.” So I headed up there and they said, “Well it’s going to take a few minutes…” The conductor just stared at them, and called me forward, and they ended up moving pretty quickly. I set my bag down in one seat, and I sat in the other. She told me to move my bag because she was going to seat a gentleman there. And that was that.

Little kids are annoying in every language.

There’s a little boy in front of me. He and his family are German. Funny how the kid seems overly smart for being able to speak fluent German, when in fact he probably can’t speak very good English. For the first hour or so, he was quiet, and he was drawing with a notebook and coloured pencils. He drew a train. And it was amusing to me that he drew an old-school coal type train. He’s only about 9 or 10. I didn’t realise they (being whoever is teaching now-a-days) were still using that type of picture for “train”. Kind of false advertising if you ask me.

Now the first hour is over and he’s suddenly realised he can tilt his chair back. I’m in business class, so chair tilting is absolutely fine, because I have so much leg room, my feet are barely on the foot rest. It’s the realising that if you sit forward and then press the release on the chair, it bangs forward, makes noise, and wiggles the chair. And it does the same thing if you do it again. And again. And again.

I bought cheese this morning. There’s a little market down Illinois from Michigan Ave called Fox and Obel. I’d seen it on one walk by, and stopped in there the next walk by. It’s the perfect type of market. All gourmet, special brand-type foods, interesting foreign stuff and so on. I went back again this morning. They have a cheese counter with a person working behind it. I went back again this morning, and come to find out, it’s the type of cheese counter that should exist everywhere… Quite european in fact. The woman working this morning asks me if I’m looking for anything special, I tell her no, and she says. “Well you can have tastes.” Tastes. So I can stand here and sample the cheeses and then buy what I want based on what I actually like. And so I did. Great cheese too.

The boy has a green folded up piece of cardboard now. Like a luggage tag or something. And he’s dropping it and catching it mid-air. Which would be fine, except he’s getting louder and more obnoxious with it by the minute. And he missed, it bounced off the chair next to me, and landed in the seat. He said sorry, but he was told to sit down anyway.

The cheese-counter woman was interesting… She evidently married a German and was moving to Germany soon. She said she’d never been much into MI and I wanted to tell her she wasn’t missing anything. I told her it has it’s nice places, and if you like the outdoors there are some fabulous places to hike and camp. She said she’d always imagined it to be a “gentle place.” If she considers “gentle” to be a euphemism for “fairly boring” then I suppose she’s right. She actually seemed, though, like the type of person who would consider a place like this to be “gentle.”

I don’t feel so well.

Now he’s being a train whistle.

I saw llamas, cows, horses, deer, sandhill cranes.

In Dearborn, there was a couple with their two children, probably one and two years old or so, and they walked by the window towards the engine, and then walked back, and the boy, the older of the two, was sobbing and screaming, loud enough that I actually heard him from in the train coach. His mom, who was holding him, was saying what appeared to be “Wave goodbye to the train!” given that she turned him towards it and waved like parents of tiny children do when trying to teach them “goodbye”… She gave up pretty quick. His little sister was just looking around.

The family was sitting in one of the double seats, and then two of the single seats. The boy and his mother were in the pair, and his father and sister were sitting in the single seats. Through out the ride, he’s switched his mother with his father, and then with his sister by loudly pulling them over to his pair of seats. Now he’s sitting in the front single seat, with the lounge-chair-style leg-rest pointing upward at a 45 degree angle and he’s loudly singing some song in German.

The guy working the dining car came back here before we got to Dearborn to tell us that he’d be closing after, and to come get anything else we wanted. I asked for 2 cranberry juices, which makes 5 total. In public-transportation-concession-speak, that means something like 8-10$. But, I’m in business class. So it was free. I make them work for my business class seat.

It’s pretty much time for me to go, and no one ever sat next to me. It’s fine though. Just meant my bag was in the overhead compartment and I still had another seat to myself.

I walked to the aquarium twice, once with Andrew and once alone. I walked back long the water. Near the aquarium is a marina, in which a number of sail boats are moored. All the sails were down, and as the wind rippled the ropes and cables, it tapped the hooks and clasps against masts, making such an amazing sound. It sounded like a hundred tiny wind chimes, spread out over the water. There wasn’t much sound from the streets or the city… Just the water and the wind.

Laughter sounds the same in every language.

Hazard being the keyword. This is after all Chicago. Which size-wise eats every major city in Michigan for lunch. Including an appetizer and dessert.

The train ride was essentially uneventful. We took advantage of our free beverages. Somewhere close to Chicago, we had to wait a few minutes while traffic up the line cleared, and then we continued on, and got to Chicago pretty much on time.

Once we got there, we had to catch a bus to the hotel. Such things should be rather simple. Most of the bus stops have maps of which busses go where. Where being your destination. Which would imply you know where your destination is. Our destination: a Marriott.

A Marriott.

As in, a certain someone had not printed out any sort of itinerary and only had a general idea of where he actually had reservations. It was a Marriott and it was on or near a road that started with an H. In downtown Chicago. So, we crammed, and let me emphasize crammed, onto a bus and headed in the general direction that Andrew figured was correct. At some point, he pulled the string and we got off. He said we passed the road he thought we were supposed to stop at, but that was ok. We walked back about a block and found, lo and behold… A Marriott.

We walked inside and were looking around and both sort of paused. “This is a pretty nice hotel…” I said. That is if by “pretty nice” I mean upscale and expensive, porters and valets, continental breakfasts and turndown services, hot towels and minibars type nice. Paid for by the University. Andrew decided that maybe he’d better look at the itinerary. After finding the address and asking one of the people at the information desk (”No.” “Yes, just do it.” “No, we’ll figure it out.” “Just go ask.” “Fine.”), we figured out that we were not in fact staying at the Marriott, but rather the Courtyard by Marriott. Some few blocks this way and a couple that way.

Here’s where I really start kicking myself for packing so much stuff. Not having travelled to such places before, I hadn’t really thought the walking part through… And under normal circumstances in such places, we could have taken a cab, but considering neither of us had ever done that before, and were therefore apprehensive, and also the key point that we didn’t actually know where we were going… We had to take the bus and end up at the wrong hotel before figuring out where we needed to go. Lucky for me, Andrew is a very nice guy, and he carried my duffel and let me drag his rolling luggage instead.

We found the Courtyard, and while still quite nice, it was certainly much more appropriately fitting to a University-sponsored business trip. No minibar or even a fridge. However the beds were comfy and it had free internet. A geek can be quite happy in a place like that.

The “train station” in Pontiac is most certainly anything but. It’s an elevated concrete sidewalk with a sign reading “Train Station.” Wishful thinking at it’s best.

Andrew ended up buying my ticket with the AAA discount as well as his own. They reiterate many times the fact that you have to have your membership card when presenting the ticket to the conductor. We figured worst case scenario they would make us pay the difference, but it was still proving to be a slight source of anxiety. They don’t bother to check tickets until the train is already moving (which I guess has it’s reasons, and they can just make you pay before you get off if you don’t have a ticket, but still…), so it wasn’t until a little while into the ride that things were settled. They didn’t even mention it.

Trains are huge. They may seem large when they are driving by while holding you up in traffic. But if you’ve never ridden a train, you have no idea just how large they are until you have to walk by the engine to get on the train.

We got on the train at one end and walked up towards the front. We had business class seats. But, I hadn’t ever been on a train at all, much less been on one enough to be able to differentiate between coach and business class. Andrew didn’t seem quite as clueless as me, but he was still slightly confused. He told me to sit and wandered back where we came. Eventually a few other people, who clearly had done this before, boarded and were mumbling something about business class. We followed them and finally found the right coach; it was at the very front of the train. Upon later consideration, it made perfect sense that it would be located at the front. Otherwise coach passengers would be able to wander through.

Graffiti artists are actually really good. I was thinking about that. We definitely passed enough of it on our way out of Pontiac and through Detroit. There were a couple of really lamely done paintings and I pointed out that I could do something like that. But it always amazes me how good people get with spray paint cans. I’m thinking now that I should do a photography exhibition of graffiti. Although the type of place that a person can stand around with multiple cans of spray paint and make illegal art is not exactly the type of place a girl like me should be walking around with 2k$ worth of photography equipment. Could take a couple of huge guys with me… But I wouldn’t bank on that really working.

The guy serving in the dining car was a trip. Sounded something like this: “Alright, alright now, what can I get for you..” “French toast and sausage.” “..french toast and sausage, alright, we’ll get you all squared away, alright, next one, what can I get for you..” “A bagel.” “..alright, alright, a bagel, we’ll get you all squared away, how about you, what can I get for you..” “A bagel.” “..alright, we’ll get that right up for you, next..” “French toast and sausage.” “..french toast and sausage, see they only give me two of those per trip, not what they call a hot ticket item, but we’ll get you taken care of, get you all squared away, what about you two..” “A bagel.” “A bagel.” “..two bagels, I’m in bagel heaven here, who else wants a bagel, anyone else need a bagel, we’ll get you all squared away, what about you..” “French toast and sausage.” “..see, now I don’t know how to break it to you, but they only give me two of those per trip, not what they call a hot ticket item, so I only have two per trip, now lets get the line wrapped around this way, so we’re not standing in business class, move on around here, what about you, lets keep it going so I can get everyone squared away, what can I get for you..” “A cinnamon roll and a coffee.” “Alright, alright, I got your coffee right here, go ahead and pick up your cinnamon roll there, I got cream and sugar right here, grab a stirrer if you need one, go ahead and move over here so you’re not in business class, they paid their 10$ for their privacy..” (He wandered out from behind the counter and closed the little curtain between the dining car and business class, all the while still talking…) “..so what can I get for you..” “A bagel.” “..a bagel, see I’m in bagel heaven here, now just wait a bit so i can heat that up, they only give me this microwave, what I really need is an oven over there, so just give me a minute, I’ll get you all squared away, “..what can I get for you..” [me] “A bagel.” “Just keeps coming with the bagels, what can I get for you..” [Andrew] “A pepsi.” “Thank heaven, I’ll get you all squared away, just give me a minute here, now what about Beatles over here, what can I get for you..” (I have to point out here that there was a girl in line wearing a Beatles shirt.) “A water and a muffin.” “..just pick out your muffin right there, and I’ll get you your water, I got a story about the Beatles, my mom once waited on the Beatles, but they were so drunk she had no idea, so she waited on the Beatles and then she sees a picture of them, and says ‘I waited on those fellas,’ but they’d had so much to drink she had no idea who they were when she waited on them, now I’ve got you all squared away, so what can I get for you…”

The whole time. Never really paused once. He was quite entertaining.