Good grief - it's been a challenging travel week this week. I can only hope that the worst is over. The week started with a massive airport delay thanks to the weather in Chicago. Once I finally got into Chicago, the cab driver I got saddled with gave me total attitude when I asked if he took American Express (I learned the hard way a few years ago to always ask first!). I nearly exploded at him with a "Really?! Are you really going to pitch an attitude to a woman who is 8 months pregnant and just had a hellish day of travel?!" Fortunately, I was able to keep myself in check and just concentrated on being able to crawl into bed soon.
Tuesday was decent during the day as I carted myself around on foot until the end of the evening. We had a work sponsored event (more on that later) to attend in the evening. Around 9pm I decided I was ready to go, and one of my co-workers very generously spent a ton of effort tracking down a cab company over the phone (we were in a somewhat remote neighborhood and stepping out to hail a cab was pretty unlikely. Plus - the temps plummeted over the course of mere hours from 50 degrees to something below zero). As the party pad had no clear glass windows, we couldn't see what the weather was doing. The cab company called back 5 min later and said that due to the blizzard like conditions (!!!) it would be another 15-30 min on top of the original 15 min quote. Ok - fine, that's not too bad. Well, 15 min after that they call AGAIN to tell us it would be yet another 30-45 min!!!! So now it's 10pm, snow is blowing like mad, and the cabs have yet to show up. Thanks to some good ol' Midwestern hospitality, one of the women in the Chicago office (whom I've never met before) caught wind that there was a pregnant woman waiting for a cab for the last hour. She promptly found me and insisted that she would drive me to my hotel. How cool is that?! :) Turns out the cabs never did show up - lame!
Wednesday's & Thursday's travels were fairly uneventful - yay! However, Thursday night we got socked with several inches of snow which made the walk into the office a little treacherous. I decided against hauling my luggage with me and figured I would just grab a cab from the hotel. So I did do just that only to get stuck with another lame-ass cabbie. This time I had cash, so that wasn't the issue. Instead, this guy decided to let me out on the slushy side of the sidewalk and flat out refused to help me with my luggage. RUDE! I've just had really crummy luck with cabbies this trip. Grrr.
So now I'm on the Metra (train) headed out to meet the family in the NW 'burbs of Chicago. Please please please keep your fingers crossed that my flight is on time and smooth for my return trip on Sunday!! I don't think I can take much more travel hassle. :(
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