Journey to Chicago

This started with a mild panic that gradually subsided through the day.

I woke up to find my preferred train had been cancelled.  It would have got me to Heathrow by 11:10, which is 3 hours before my flight, so there was plenty of leeway.  At Cambridge North, the ticket machines refused to sell me the tickets I wanted, despite the two Greater Anglia employees minding the machines telling me it would, until I demonstrated it wouldn't and they said, well no of course you can't do that.  So I had to pay an extra £15 to get to Heathrow instead and make an extra change at Cambridge.  That train was OK, and pretty empty, until Stevenage, when it filled up with people who presumably had been wanting the earlier cancelled train.  The Elizabeth line train was lovely and got me to the airport not much later than I had intended.

My boarding pass did not work the gate at security.  When the man tried it in his, it didn't work there first time, but did the second time.  After that, I was able to go straight through without queueing or unpacking anything and embark on the long walk to the B-gates at the other end of the terminal.  My boarding pass did not work the scanner at the lounge entrance either, but then the lady pointed out that I needed to tap on it with my finger first, which makes it larger and brighter - after which scanners can read it easilty!  They'd stopped serving breakfast in the lounge, as it was around midday by them, so they'd moved onto a light lunch instead.   The coffee was nice.

I had to show my passport and boarding pass at the game to board the plane, and that's the last time I used my passport!

The plane was a Dreamliner - it doesn't really make any difference to the seat, as that's a standard unit that gets installed in whatever plane, but I liked the electronic window blinds that darkened the view to almost opaque: (Link to video)  They went even darker than the video showed. The food was good as usual, including the favourite ice cream sundae.

The Polaris section of the plane had 44 seats and I'd estimate it was not even half full.   I was able to sleep about 3 hours in total during this flight, which was unusual for me, but welcome.

Once we actually got to the gate, it took 10 minutes to be through everything into the main terminal.  There was a short walk, then I had to just look at a screen, tap that I was a tourist and it went green and go through, collecting a (fairly tatty) laminated card to say I'd been approved that I handed in as I pass through customs.  This is much better than printing out disposable receipts!

I got to the hotel at about 7pm in the end and had dinner there, sitting outside (next to the warmers!) with these views over the Chicago river.   There was some sort of party bar on the opposite river bank but that switched off at 10pm thankfully, as I could hear it from my 6th floor room.