Trip Recap
Now I finally have the time to elaborate more on my business trip.
As pretty much everyone noticed, I had to fly out to Chicago on September 11. I can't deny that I was nervous about this. But of course, nothing went wrong. I got through security at Logan very quickly and then had to wait something like two hours in the terminal because the flight had been delayed due to thunderstorms in Chicago. The flight out was probably the best one I've ever had (out of all 4, ha), because it was not too turbulent, I sat on the aisle (and there were two strangers to my left, so I didn't see a thing out the window - good!), and I had a lot of work to keep me busy (I was proofing a brochure that had been written in English by a colleague in China, and while her English is a million times better than my Chinese, I couldn't let that brochure out of my sight with all the grammatical errors I saw).
I landed at O'Hare around 9-ish local time, or 10-ish Boston time. Then came the second scariest transportation moment of my traveling life (the top honors go to the taxi driver on my way out of LaGuardia when I went to NY in June) - the shoddiest shuttle van on the face of the planet, and a driver who laughed when he almost missed the exit off the highway, slammed on the brakes and ended up in that little wedge of pavement dividing the highway from the exit, facing a very big guardrail.
As you already know, I got in to my hotel room at about 10:30. What you don't know is that this room was the second one they had given me. When I got in to the first one I found someone else's stuff already in there. Thank goodness I didn't actually stumble in on anyone sleeping or doing goodness knows what else.
Once I got in to the room, I tried to track down my colleague Dan from the UK, the one actually giving the training. We kept on missing each other apparantly, and never got in touch that night. I went to bed and set the alarm for 7:00 AM, since I knew we would have to be at the office for 9:00-9:30.
At 6:50 AM the next morning, Dan called and asked me if I was ready to go. Um, nope. So he had some breakfast while I showered and dressed.
We finally met up and since he had rented a car, he drove me to the office. I took this picture with my phone on the way. Note the sign says "Mid America." I was so damn proud of myself for flying so far that I got in to a totally different section of the U.S. ... welcome to the Mid-West!!
We were about 80% of the way to the office when Dan realized he had forgotten all the training materials back at the hotel. So he promptly did a U-turn and drove back to the hotel at breakneck speed, because we were late to begin with. But oh, it gets better. He had forgotten to bring a tie with him, and since he is used to the head office where everyone dresses up all the time, he felt very uncomfortable being in a suit and no tie. I just happened to see a Kohl's on the way and of course I KNEW he could get a good tie at a good price there. So on Round Two from the hotel, we were running wicked late, and what do we do? Go shopping. :) But of course, this was the absolute quickest shopping trip I've ever done, especially for Kohl's - following a tall guy in a black suit at a fast speed into Kohl's, it almost felt like an FBI raid or something :)
Finally, training materials and tie in hand, we made it to the office in Oak Brook, IL. This office is so sleek and modern, it makes my office back here (which is fairly nice) look like a total dump! Dan, Deb (from the Chicago office) and I settled in to the executive conference room, with its curvy table, leather chairs, flat screen wall-mounted monitor (heck, it was really a TV) and wireless keyboard/mouse. Man, I never wanted to leave. The receptionist was great, bringing us big mugs of coffee and a basket of pastries for breakfast, then sandwiches and salads for lunch.
For dinner that night, we met Julie (a marketing colleague) and had drinks at a restaurant called Wildfire. I proceeded to have the best martini and steak of my life. As well as the largest sweet potato known to man (about three times the size of an average sweet potato). Dan told us all about when he used to live in Geneva, and Deb and I decided a webmasters' meeting in Switzerland is now in order :)
After dinner Dan asked me to hang out with him at the bar in the hotel, which I did because I had nothing better to do. We sat there with a talkative electrician from Detroit, who called me "sweetie," which was fairly annoying. Finally, after last call came and went and we were still there with said electrician, and I had finally finished my Mike's Hard Lemonade, I took my leave. It was almost midnight, Chicago time.
I found out the next morning that the bartender had offered Dan all kinds of free drinks after I had left, which of course he took. So he was totally dragging butt the next morning. Other than that, Wednesday morning was much better than Tuesday morning. We actually had breakfast and got to the office on time, without having to turn around or go shopping. :)
The training continued in the same fancy room on the same boring topics. After lunch (Chicago style pizza - YUM) we took a tour of the lab. And yeah, I almost fainted - this particular lab tests toys and other consumer items for safety (choking hazards, etc) and there was one particularly graphic video that made me feel all dizzy and my ears rang like crazy. I had to leave the tour - how embarrassing. Other than that, Wednesday went off without a hitch.
After a long day at the office, I had dinner with the same group at a different restaurant, Houlihan's. The food was very good but I was just not very hungry - nervous about the flight back.
Oh and here is another picture from the camera phone, which I took in the car on the way to Houlihan's. This is Oak Brook, Illinois. Basically all I saw there were... corporate offices... everywhere. You could duplicate this picture seventeen times and you'd have a panoramic view of Oak Brook. Not a single oak tree or babbling brook to be found. (Likewise, the hotel being located in a town called Countryside was also quite misleading.)
Deb drove me up to O'Hare after dinner. I just barely made the check-in cut-off time for my luggage. Then I came to find out that my flight had been delayed... again... AND, it had been moved to a different gate. I still sat there and waited for a good half hour though. Although once I had made it through security, I made a point to stop at a newsstand and pick up some Chicago postcards, and a Chicago shot glass for my growing shot glass collection. Never mind that I never once stepped foot in Chicago proper, only tootled around the suburbs... but whatever, I was close enough. Saying Oak Brook is in Chicago like saying Wilmington is in Boston.
My flight out of O'Hare finally took off at about 9:30 PM Central time. Of course, this is 10:30 PM Eastern. After a bumpy flight back - which was horrible because I had no desire to do work, was disinterested in my book, and was way too nervous to sleep - we finally landed at Logan at about 12:45 AM. Add in luggage pick up, waiting for my shared-van ride, waiting in said van for another passenger, and the drive back to Boxborough, and I didn't get to sleep in my bed until 3:15 AM. Needless to say, I was very late to work yesterday... like 11:30 late.
So yeah, that is the story of my first business trip. All said, it was actually a lot of fun!