Yes folks, I've been travelling again, this time to the delights of Iowa. Unforunately, unlike the Hilton, the Sheraton chain of hotels hasn't rolled out wireless to all rooms for free yet, so this update had to wait until I returned. Naturally, because I was travelling, various people, circumstances, and objects set about trying to kill me. Here are the guilty parties:
- United Airlines try to kill me
It was meant to be straightforward: from Newark to Chicago, and then onto Cedar Rapids, Iowa, arriving at 6pm. That would leave plenty of time to get to the hotel, have some dinner, and then have a restful evening in preparation for a very busy day the next day. Instead, United Airlines (henceforth to be referred to as "the accused") decided to try to kill me. It started off innocuously enough. I got to Chicago O'Hare airport, named after top international flying ace, Captain Bucky O'Hare, without too much trouble. I then had an hour to spare before my connection. With the intention of livening up someone's day, I went over to the customer servuce desk of the accused, and instead of everyone else there, who were complaining or changing their flights, I asked the desk jockey if there was anything fun to do at Chicago airport for an hour or so. He shook his head in disbelief. I shrugged, and took a wander around the terminal. This was about 3pm.
Things started to go wrong, when I saw that my flight, originally shown on time, was now being displayed as 40 minutes delayed. Oh well, this can't be helped, I'd just have to cut down the amount of rest that I got that evening. Then, next time I looked at a screen, I was rather more disturbed to see that the flight had een cancelled. This is never good news. So I went bac to the customer service desk, found a different customer fucking over assistant, explained my predicament, and watched as she proceeded to do her job, of fucking me over. Presumably this happens a lot, since she didn't look at me, but just took my now redundant boarding pass, and started tapping away at the computer. After about two minutes, a new boarding pass printed out, and she shoved it at me without any explanation or apology. I was too surprised to even enquire about compensation or explanation for the inconvenience. I had been rebooked onto a flight leaving at 8pm, to arrive at 9pm. This wasn't too bad: I'd have to rearrange my ride to the hotel, but it meant I could get dinner at the airport, and so go straight to the hotel and chill out for a short while before turning in. It was then about 4pm.
Let me spare you the rest of this story. It's not all that interesting, and mostly consists of United Airlines fucking me, repeatedly. Let's just jump to the end: the plane landed in Cedar-Rapids not at 6pm, when I was supposed to arrive, not at 9pm when the later flight was due in, but at 1am.
Have you ever spent 8 hours in an airport? Here's my suggestion: if you can avoid it, don't. They poison the air and blind you with fluorescent lights, so that you enter a bizarre sleepless catatonia, in which you are unable to think, can hardly read, are deprived of privacy, space, intellectual stimulation or entertainment. In all this time I discovered only one interesting fact, which is that the policemen patrolling Chicago airport ride around on Segway scooters, like something out of the future or something.
- Other passengers try to kill me
OK, not exactly fatal, but I'm still at a loss why twice in my journey (arriving at Chicago the first time, and getting back to Newark) the other passengers began applauding as soon as the wheels touched the ground. Perhaps it's just that they are regular United passengers and are glad not to have been fucked over this time. But, it hardly seems to deserve congratulation for actually delivering the service that was promised rather than, for example, cancelling a flight for no reason and then proceeding to fuck over the displaced passengers by delaying them for eight hours. It's also a little precipitate to applaud just when the wheels touch down: the plane is still travelling at several hundred miles an hour, with plenty of potential for still hitting something and turning into a giant ball of fire. Should at least curb one's excitemtn till the plane pulls up to the terminal (which typically involves taxiing from one side of the airport to the other these days). And lastly, it's not clear what you think you are achieving by clapping: it's not as if the pilot can hear you, since he's the other side of a bolted reinforced steel door with armed guards blocking the way.
- Hotels continue to try to kill me
OK, so this time the reason I couldn't sleep well was mostly due to having been repeatedly fucked by United Airlines earlier in the day, but I still think the hotel has some responsibility. How else am I meant to the interpret the scene when I crawled into the room at nearly 2am, of a bed with a dozen pillows consuming about half the available space? Obviously a direct threat. I threw them all off, and was able to make do with a small cushion placed on top that was almost thin enough to avoid cricking my neck. And the TV was still rubbish, most notably in not supplying the USA cable channel, and hence denying me the chance to see the Monk season finale. Gits.
- Iowa City tries to bore me to death
Also exaggeration, but I had allocated three hours to explore the city on Saturday morning, and after about two hours I had run out of things to do and was bored. Probably I could have found more if I had been more enthusiastic, but I think I was still smarting from being fucked over by United Airlines. Also, I was rather fooled by the fact it was called Iowa City, whereas Iowa Small Midwestern Town would probably have been more appropriate.
So there we go. I found out later that Chicago has a reputation for being a bad place to chance planes at, and that United Airlines is actually in bankruptcy proceedings. So, a combination to avoid in future. By the way, my next trip is coming up soon, I'm flying out to Mountain View, California. Via Chicago. On United. Fuck.
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