I’m in Chicago this week for training.  My employer recently purchased another company and I’m here to learn their systems for eventual integration with our software.

Day 0:

Our flight from CAK to ORD was delayed by an hour.  Not bad considering the person at the ticket counter initially said it would be at least 3 hours late before we even took off.  Total late:  66 minutes.  When we landed however, there was “a boarding issue with the plane that was occupying our gate,” so we had to wait until another became available.  I’m betting the “issue” was related to the firetrucks and ambulances at the gate in front of us.  Just a guess.

Getting through ORD was surprisingly easy.  Our bags were on the belt when we got to the baggage claim – in and out.  We caught the bus to the Avis lot, got our Malibu (surprisingly nice car) and set out for the hotel.  The hotel is in the North Shore area, approximately 14 miles from ORD.  This is an important point.

For some reason, we didn’t get the “Where2″ garmin nav for our rental.  This $10 saves our company a lot.  The only map we had said to take 90/94 east.  This is an important point.  Get a map.  Go ahead, get a map, I’ll wait.  Look up Chicago and look at route 94 from ORD to downtown.  It goes North and it goes South.  It doesn’t go East and it doesn’t go West.  The signs however say 94 East or 94 West.  That’s it – no 94 East to the freakin’ Detriot this way or 94 West to Fargo that way.  The signs suck.

So, after a while (waaay more than 14 miles) I said to Sam, “Sam, I think we’re going to Indianapolis.”  Sam agreed, so we decided to get off at 63rd st. and get oriented.  The neat thing about 63rd st. is that you can get off of 94 NorthSouthEast, but not on.  The other interesting thing about cities in general is the abundance of one-way streets.  After driving around for a few minutes we stopped at the red light in front of Elmo’s.  A block north of Elmo’s is Rambo’s Liquor.  It’s an interesting part of Chicago that we otherwise probably wouldn’t have experienced.

Fast forward – a few minutes, several turns, and numerous blocks later we figure out up from down and we’re back on 94 West, which is really 94 North.  70.3 miles later we arrived at the 14-miles-from-the-airport hotel, check in, and head to  Flatlander’s for dinner.  Flatlander’s is a nice micro-brewery in the North Shore with a great atmosphere, great service, and great food.

So, here I am 11 hours after I disembarked, I’m safe and sound blogging on the free Wi-fi.

Let’s hope Day 1 holds as much adventure as Day 0.