Saturday, October 22, 2011

Don't be a bag

We took the subway downtown and got off in a rather shady area.  We're lugging our stuff around and it's dark and late and I don't know where we are and so we go into a McDonald's to use the facilities and we're pulling out maps and I'm thinking we look a little like easy marks with our pasty white faces and our overall stunned appearance and then I see this guy who looks like he walked straight off the Law and Order television set.  Black, built, jeans, diamond earrings, cop badge on a chain around his neck.  I gotta talk to this guy. 
I ask him if he knows where the Fairmont is and he takes one look at us and kind of laughs and says he'll get us to the Fairmont.  Leads us out onto the street, stops and directs traffic, gets us a cab, tells the cabbie to get us to the Fairmont and basically says "welcome to Chicago".  It was awesome.  I'm sure he's got a million other things to do than to deal with a couple of wayward tourists but it was just the quintessential greeting and he was so bloody nice.  I'll never forget it.
They track Michael's bag down and deliver it to our hotel room at like 1am in the morning or some damn thing.  It was a good thing, though, because all his running gear was in his suitcase and we were already making plans to try and replace it all, but running a marathon with all new gear?  Not a great idea.
The Fairmont was nice, but what is it with luxe hotels nickel and dimeing you to death?  $15 a day for WiFi.  What?  I'm already paying $200 a night for the room.  It was kind of weird in that regard, but on the plus side it was close to the start line and it was really quiet and we slept brilliantly when we were there.
Slept in until "noon" the next day, which was really only 10am our time.  Putzed around a bit and then hopped the shuttle out to the package pick up.  It was hot.  I had packed more for my Montreal/Ottawa leg of the trip and it was sunny and I was wearing jeans and did I mention it was hot and I was tired and cranky. 
I could have been less of a bitch on that Saturday.  I admit that.

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