{"id":2795,"date":"2017-08-14T18:53:06","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T17:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=2795"},"modified":"2017-08-14T18:54:19","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T17:54:19","slug":"monday-in-indianapolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=2795","title":{"rendered":"Monday In Indianapolis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ok, so when we last checked in, I think I’d made it to the hotel & gone splat <\/i>for the night?<\/p>\n

The train to Indianapolis wasn’t until the evening, and check out was a very civilised mid-day, so I had a bit of time to kill, and breakfast to eat. <\/p>\n

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Replace ‘cake” with ‘bacon’, and that’s more or less the situation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In my defense, this was the first hot meal since breakfast at Heathrow. Also, aside from the cookie, the first good meal since Dublin.<\/p>\n

Stop judging me! <\/b><\/p>\n

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I was on the Hilton Honors floor, at the top of the hotel of course<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maybe the little plaque was a thing at previous hotels? I can’t remember. In any case, the room was comfy, the bed worked, and I never ended up using the TV, sofa setting, or the bath.<\/p>\n

Also, thanks to the odd floor plan of the hotel, I was able to photograph my room from the outside.<\/p>\n

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Took some time to archive\/photograph all of the documents so far, just in case they became useful (I filled in one of those arrival card things, but never got asked for it. The same basic questions were asked by the screening robots at Dublin CBP, but none of the follow ups) <\/i><\/p>\n

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No reason, I just liked the look of the thing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Killed some time by checking my bag & wandering over to Fashion Outlets Of Chicago, which is basically a Name-Brand Mall. They had a T-Mobile store with two staff wondering why the hell there were so many people there on a Sunday morning, so there was a wait, mostly because they were tied up with a couple of really complicated purchases.<\/p>\n

‘Chill Traveler Craig’ came to the fore, and I mooched around until they were free; Even let someone dive ahead of me, as they’d arrived with a panicked look and a wad of cash, to pay their bill a day late.<\/p>\n

The big annoyance of the day, aside from the frankly shit signage at O’Hare, was getting into Chicago by CTA, whose machines don’t give change & require a zip code to take a credit card.
\nWhich is shit-all use when you’re from outside the US, using a prepaid currency card, and have no idea what zip code, if any, is the right one.<\/p>\n

It’s an international airport, there should at least be the understanding that places outside of the US exist.<\/p>\n

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Still, I broke a 20 and got some change, and rode the train all the way into Chicago, and found my way to the Metropolitan Lounge at Chicago Union Station, with comfy sofas, a bag check, and snacks.<\/p>\n

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“Only Two Kinds Of Cheese? What Are We, Animals!?”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also, spotted this when I took a walk around the general vicinity of the station.<\/p>\n

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Walking in off the street is kind of impressive; It’s a big damn space.
\n(there was an idea I pitched for the Big Red Couch episode ‘Alien Leprechaun’ which was based around train stations, or more accurately a <\/b>train station, and I imagined it to look something like Chicago Union)<\/i><\/p>\n

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In the fullness of time, and with a fullness of snacks, I got to the train.
\nYou’re not actually at <\/b>river level when youre in the train, but there can’t be that much in it between water and track level.<\/p>\n

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It’s interesting to note a very big disparity between the style of the station and platform at Chicago Union; Station is all classic Big Public Building architecture, or is at least trying to make you think of that sort of thing.
\nThe platforms are all business & function; There’s nothing decorative going on at all.
\nI’ve been trying, and I can’t even think of an aboveground tube station with that little in the way of aesthetics going on.<\/p>\n

I don’t know enough of the history of the place to know whether this was always the case; Was the original assumption that folks would only see the platforms while walking to & from trains, so who gave a damn? Or is it something else?
\nShould find that out.<\/p>\n

The train journey was uneventful enough.
\nWe got stuck behind a freight somewhere in Indiana, so arrived an hour late, which is … something that’s always a risk with Amtrak.
\nThe cafe car chap starte apologising to me on reflex, and seemed relieved when I assured him that it wasn’t a big deal for me; I get the idea that repeat customers or frequent travelers, at least ones who look my age, aren’t that common, because he did relax when I mentioned having done longer trips & watched the train get behind schedule for a while, then make it up, then lose it again.
\nIt’s just the way things are.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we got in at 1am, around an hour late, and the worst part of the whole thing was the dongpenguin one row back & across the aisle, who managed to make noise the entire fucking trip.<\/p>\n