Flying the friendly skies

When we left off, our intrepid travellee was stuck in sfo airport awaiting news about united's 777 fleet status. During that time I had grabbed and devoured a big 9 oz bag of trail mix (note: must gain willpower back - in meantime, buy smaller bags). Well, it turns out the faa wasn't going to bend and let united defer their maintenance check (it was a check of the fire retardant tanks used in the cargo section, according to united it was a failsafe not necessary for atlantic flights). So, they herded us to the domestic lobby so that they could service 2 planes' worth of people. It took over 2 hours to get through the line in front of me (with at least another half hour's worth behind me). They gave me a ticket on another flight the next day, one which had a connection in denver, and a hotel accomodations at the best western el rancho inn in millbrae, and meal vouchers for the next day. Oh and a toiletry kit, because they weren't giving back the bags. One thing about being in a line with a bunch of old brits is that they seem to have little grasp of personal space when they have their knickerbockers in a bunch. The gentleman, a term I use loosely when applied to this fellow, behind me kept bumping into me as the line moved forward. Where's the fire?! In any case, I hopped on the hotel shuttle and arrived at el rancho inn around 12:30 am. 'the rancho' is a standard 2/3 star joint. Similar to one we stayed in in morro bay. I had breakfast at the café there. A scramble with potatoes - it was ok. Then I grabbed some snacks at the local safeway (granola and powdered drink mix) and also some more dramamine at the walgreens. There is another motion sickness drug called bonine which I will have to try sometime. I got on the shuttle to the airport at 10:30, went thru security, and wondered what I should do for the next 4 hours. Well, one option was wander around looking at books and food and another was to go talk some more to united. Luckily with some good sense, I chose the latter, because they put me on a direct flight leaving at 1 and gave me a voucher good towards my next flight with united (and possibly my last - I plan to do a little airline research when I get back). <break in time: I had been writing this on the plane, now we're back to now> the plane ride over had its good and its bad moments. The aircraft was an older 747, with seats in a 3-4-3 configuration and a projector for the inflight movies (becoming jane, alvin and the chipmunks, and the golden compass - none which I watched). I was seated in the middle seat on the right (starboard?) side of the plane. To my left on the aisle was a college graduate going to backpack around europe, yet he had a nasty cold and to my right was an older cranky friendly (you know the type - extroverted but always pessimistic) expat brit. Some lessons learned from the experience: pack earplugs and a sleep mask, and sometimes its better to choose sleep over food (especially food found on an airplane). The earplugs would have helped because the brit wouldn't let up about how she couldn't sleep on planes. There was a good moment when the plane flew right along the thames and we got a nice view of the london skyline. The plane touched down and we went thru customs and made it to baggage claim. Unfortunately due to the fiasco the night before my luggage didn't make it on the same flight. So I put in a request to have the bag delivered to the hotel in london. I stopped at the atm in terminal 3 just outside of customs, grabbed my heathrow express ticket, and got on the train. The train ride is pretty quick into london. Then its a few hops from paddington to king's cross (however it was quite costly - the tube ticket was 4 pounds). At king's cross I got on the cambridge express on platform 9a, just passed harry potter's platform 9 3/4. The train to cambridge was fast and smooth. There was a taxi stop there, but I decided to do as the locals and walk. Canbridge is a college town. After arriving at the hotel, getting settled in, setting an alarm for 20 minutes and proceeding to sleep for 5 hours, I got out and walked around. There isn't much to cambridge. The colleges are not really open to the public and its fairly quiet (school's not in session now). I wandered around and saw the river where students were picnicking on its banks (it was still a little bit light out at 7:15). I saw the king's college chapel and found a borders bookstore (i need to get a book for the trip home since I finished my book on the way here). I found a book on best pubs and it listed one on gwyder street and another on mawson, but those were on the other side of town so I didn't go. After walking around (maybe a mile and a half), I came back to the hotel and watched some telly, the apprentice british version was on. I ate some leftovers from the business dinner jadine went to. Today we plan to stay a little longer in cambridge (probably take a punt out on the river) and then head back down to london.

I left my heart in san francisco (as well as hope of getting out of here)

United airlines has been forced to ground all of their 777s due to a maintenance issue. Guess which kind of plane I was going to fly on? :) oh well, at least the terminal is pretty nice...

Breakfast in the city

We got up, and with sorrow checked-out of our suite. We left the bags at the bell stand and walked back to the visitor's center to get a train pass. At the visitor's center, we got a tip on a great breakfast spot, Tempo. Tempo's located on the northern end of downtown on State st. The place was packed with people (an obvious local favorite). We got a monte cristo sandwich and some pancakes which were both great. The orange juice is fresh squeezed and fantastic.
After Tempo, we walked over to the Hancock building and took the fastest elevator in the US to the observatory on the 94th floor. The view of Chicago is quite stunning from up there.
After the observatory, we decided we'd go to the Museum of Contemporary Art and then take a train to Eli's Cheesecake Factory. The museum had a art of rock n' roll exhibit which was decent yet slightly obscure to me (late 60s, early 70s bands mostly). The highlight was the store which had some very cool stuff (wind-up sushi, LED xmas trees, vinyl albums pressed into bowls and cut into coasters). I got a little caught up in it and we didn't get out of there until almost 3:30. We knew the Cheesecake factory was closing at 5, so we decided we'd just head back to the hotel and ask for a closer place to get Eli's. On the way back, we stopped in a couple stores. Jadine bought a pair of shoes she liked.
We grabbed the bags from the Omni and headed down a couple blocks to our next hotel, the InterContinental. Along the way we stopped in at a busy popcorn store and picked up 2 bags (macademia caramel and cashew caramel -- the plan was to bring one home, but neither bag was sealed, so now we're stuck with chowing down on this stuff all week).
We checked in and got an OK room, decent size and LCD panel tv. The conference is here so that's the main reason we're here.
We met up with a coworker who is also attending the conference and headed out to dinner at the Capital Grille (rated #1 steakhouse in Chicago on citysearch). I had the Delmonico (ribeye) and Jadine had the surf & turf (filet and crab legs). The food was OK, nothing really special, and overpriced, but the service was good (Dan Aykroyd).
After dinner we headed to Rush st (recommended by our waiter) and found a pub there. We had a drink there before calling it a night and headed back to our hotel (one mile taxi ride $6).

Thank you, Mr. Shatner!

Chicago.. The windy city. When I learned that there were tickets available to go to Chicago for business, I flipped. Although, it was probably more for because it was my first real trip on the company dime rather than to go to Chicago. Chicago didn't have a huge draw for me. It's up there with Green Bay and Charleston -- there's maybe one or two things I know about the city but it still seems like the city is not close to anything. I know, I know -- Elliott Ness squared off with Al Capone here.. the basis of Eight Men Out and Field of Dreams films came from the 1919 White Sox scandal that rocked the baseball world.. Ferris Bueller had his day off here.. Still Chicago was just a town in the Midwest on a map in school.. Wrong! Chicago is happening.. A metropolis with character.
We arrived here after a 3 1/2 hour flight on Southwest (plane was empty with plenty of space to stretch out -- score!). After a half hour cab ride, "Welcome to the Omni, sir" says the doorman as he opens our cab door. Excellent! Thank you, Mr Shatner for keeping that little website priceline still going. Priceline got us a fabulous suite at the Omni Chicago for less than half the "Net Savvy" rate quoted on their website. And in fact, it's regular rate is higher than some hotels with half the amenities. The Omni is in a fantastic location, right in the middle of the Magnificent Mile, and is a giant room.
After settling into our suite, we got the 411 at the local Visitor's Center (3 blocks up the magnificent mile at the WaterWorks building). We got loads of great information here from the helpful assistant. She hooked us up with the public transportation map and let us in on the days when the museums have free admission.
From here we set out for a late lunch/early dinner at Portillo's. Portillo's is ranked 6th in Chicago for Chicago dogs on CitySearch (it's also the closest to us). Portillo's is not a hot dog stand. It's rather large resembling Fuddruckers which kinda turned me off, but the dog brought me back. It was a fantastic chicago style dog with relish, tomatoes, peppers, and pickle. The Maxwell St Polish was tasty as well with mustard and grilled onions. I got a large Sam Adams here for $3 also. The whole meal was less than $15 for the 2 of us. I love America! (well, let's say I love not being somewhere else where the dollar translates to 2 cents).
After the good eats, we walked over to Navy Pier (a longer haul than the map showed). At Navy Pier we watched Marcoux Corner, a acappella group, who were pretty decent, got some Chicago style popcorn (Caramel + Cheese), saw a stained glass exhibit, and rode the 150 ft ferris wheel (umm where's the parachute? first ferris wheel ride -- I nearly broke the side bar from gripping onto it so tight.. However after hitting the top of the wheel, I loosened up).
We waited at the bus stop for the free trolley back to Michigan Ave, but it was full and didn't stop. So we trucked it back to the hotel.
Now my feet hurt, but I'm ready for more.

Good to be back

Well, the trip is over. It was fun but it really makes you appreciate the good things we have here at home like driving rules (dmv may not be so bad after all) and sand on the beach. One nice thing we found in Rome was the airport. There is a train which takes 30 minutes from the city to the airport and once in the airport from the train to our gate took 20 minutes! It may have been a light travel day, but it was super quick. Coming through JFK took us 40 minutes through customs because they flagged me for search. Ridiculous security theater.
Anyway, the trip was good and we wouldn't have changed it.

Catholic cash machine

We woke up a little later today and had a nice breakfast with cappucino in the hotel. We relaxed a little after breakfast as our Vatican reservations were for noon. We hopped on the metro at Termini and it made it to the Vatican stop in about 5 minutes and then we had maybe a 10 minute walk from there to the Vatican entrance. There was no one in the guided tour line; however, when we got to the group meetup point, there were over 30 of us. The tour turned out to be pretty good, cutting through some of the more uninteresting stuff and getting to the meat of the collection like the Raphael room and the Sistine Chapel both very awesome. The chapel was packed with people. We found out there were 10,000 visitors to the vatican museum that day (and that it was a light day). At an average of 10e per person that's like 100,000e per day. The popes are pretty smart to realize capitalizing on collectibles is a good way to keep the gears turning. After the Sistine Chapel, we went into St Peter's church which was massive. After touring the church, we went out to the square and saw where the pope will have his audience tomorrow. It was about 3 and we hadn't had lunch. So, we set out and grabbed the 40 bus to Campo de Fiori. We found a cool little bar that served up dozens of different sandwiches. The sandwiches (Jadine had a turkey and I had smoked ham) and beer were good, but it started raining while we were eating and the temp dropped. Jadine ordered a cup of hot chocolate and that's what they served - melted milk chocolate very thick and quite good. We caught a break in the rain and found a shop that could sell Jadine a scarf. Then, we resumed our walk over to Piazza Nuvola where the 4 rivers fountain was unfortunately closed. From here we kept walking through the sights (pantheon, stolen egyptian obilisk, column commemorating Augustus) until we came to a mall. Jadine was feeling shopping withdrawal and we stopped into Zara where Jadine bought a couple sweaters. After shopping, we made our way to the Trevi fountain. The fountain was fantastic - like something you'd see in Vegas but this was the real deal. We tossed our coins into the fountain. We went onto the Spanish Steps and to the subway this time a little earlier (just before 9). We made it to our hotel stop and had dinner near the hotel at a restaurant with terrible service and ok food (we ordered basil dishes and only got at most a leaf). Maybe not the best note to end on but maybe that was the Trevi fountain's way of ensuring that we come back and find better spots in Rome.

Rick Steves in half a day

The plan today was to take a boat ride to Naples and a taxi to the station; however the wind had kicked up and suspended boat travel. So, we had to quickly get ready to catch the 9:30 bus. The buses in Italy are a mess - everyone scrambles to whatever bus pulls in and checks with the driver which way it is headed. We found our bus which apparently everyone else in Amalfi wanted because it was packed and we had to stand. The road out of Amalfi is too narrow in parts for 2 buses to get by so there were several times when our bus got jammed and the bus uphill would have to pull back. After a 2 hour winding bus ride (dramamine and fresh air from open windows helped) we made it to the Circumvesuviana station. We caught the 12:07 train and got to Naples around 1:15. We found our 1:48 train to Rome and hopped on board. We found out the train's snack car doesn't open until the train starts moving (some enterprising individuals took advantage of this fact and sold snacks baseball park style through the train aisles). We grabbed a mediocre ham and cheese sandwich and a eggplant panino and some pringles for lunch on the train. We arrived in Rome around 3:15 and walked to the hotel (about 10 minutes from the train station). We checked in, freshened up, and headed out for Rick Steves forum walk. We first walked to the Colosseum. It was so impressive in person Jadine suggested we go inside. To get inside it's 11e per person, but it's pretty cool to stroll through it and imagine its glory days and the centuries of vandalism and decay afterwards. After the colosseum, we strolled through the roman forum and saw Julius Caesar's funeral pyre spot and the ruins of ancient rome. It was just about 7 (when they actually close the forum) when we hopped on the metro for Rick Steves spanish steps walk. The metro is convenient, but the ticket system is a little odd - there are machines available to purchase the tickets but they are slow or broken or don't accept the currency you have. The tabacchi shops are where to go really - they sell all the metro tickets. In any case, we made it up to the Piazza del Poppolo where they had a band playing and some circus performers. It seemed like a nice place but full of tourists and where there's tourist in Rome, there are thieves. So, we continued the walk seeing all the shops along the Corso until we reached the Spanish Steps. The steps were less impressive in person than on the big screen and a lot more crowded, but still a very nice spot to hang out and enjoy the night. We went to the nearby Rick Steves recommended Ristornate il Gabriello. It was a little hard to find as it is below street level but it was a good find as the food was excellent. We had a very tasty bruschetta, Jadine had spaghetti with clams followed by mussels, and I had pasta with prawns followed by a steak and lettuce salad. By the time we finished, it was a little after 9:30 and we were tired from the day so we headed to the nearby metro station which as luck would have it was closed (Rome's metro stinks like that). Luckily there's a cab stop nearby and the ride back to the hotel was only a couple extra euros than taking the metro. Tomorrow sees us at the Vatican.