It was sometime during this stay that I ticked over into a higher category of loyalty membership for the Hilton conglomerate; I’m assuming by nights stayed or total stays, because I’m sure as hell not worth it for dollars spent. Not with the number of cheap advance deals I’m using.
The first thing I did upon checking in was fall asleep for four hours or so. Woke up with my phone plugged in but in the floor, so maybe I fell asleep reading something?
The room faces one of the O’Hare flight paths, so I was able to get this shot of a plane landing. Or a UFO. I’m not sure.
Spent some time sorting out accommodation for the UK;
- An airport hotel for arrival, as it’s a sufficiently early flight out of Iceland that it’ll probably be easier all round to take a very late bus to the airport the night before, rather than leave the hostel at 3am and annoy everyone. That means I’ll be pretty shattered by the time I hit Gatwick, so something walking distance seems like a winning strategy.
For even more on that winning strategy, it was cheaper to go with an actual hotel over a Yotel cabin. In theory I won’t be able to check in until nearly 4 hours after I land, but I’ve noticed that relatively few hotels will leave you in the lobby if they can avoid it, and I’m a silver member now, so let’s see what that’ll get me. - Some accommodation in London, at a B&B who’re listed on Hostelworld for some reason, for a little over a week.
The airport hotel did have some amusing decor in places, such as in the elevators.
I was there for a couple of nights, and had had the vague plan of heading back into Chicago’s Downtown for my last day.
Even set out for the train station, but then realised that there was really nothing I wanted or needed to do there, so I went back to the hotel instead, via a 7-11 because holy crap did it get sunny that day.
Caught up with Steve & Moni on my last evening in the US.
The first choice of restaurant was closed for a private function, so we found another, from which we were able to watch them station some staff members outside to fend off unlucky patrons, and then to welcome the multiple shuttlebuses of people arriving for whatever the hell the event was.
Packing up and checking out went as well as could be expected.
Takes up less room this time, which I don’t even pretend to understand, though I did do a thorough check in case I’d forgotten something.
I turned the top compartment of the pack into a repository for occasional items, and took the cold weather stuff out of it’s drybag, but I don’t see how that’d free up much space.
Got to the airport vastly early, mostly because I was getting sick of the Housekeeping folks knocking on the room door to see if I was gone yet. In hindsight, I should have kicked back in the lobby, because Icelandair check-in didn’t open until 4 hours after I got to the airport.
Not my best plan, it would seem.
TSA screening went well though. No issues beyond the usual hair-fondling.
And someone gave me a voucher for a day’s internet access, which is how you’re getting this update.