Text 27893, 61 rader
Skriven 2012-08-03 10:12:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: July wanderings 63
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The real start
UA3708 BWI ORD 1930 2036 CR7 1C

The plan was to camp out at the Airspace Lounge, but I found
that McDonald's offers free wi-fi; and looking around I then
found that my most recent home away from home, Bateman's,
was rumored to have closed. I didn't have my United boarding
passes, and the two combined to make me want to go out into
the public area and see what was what. First - the United
machine said it was taking volunteers for the Nashville
flight, so I volunteered. Second - Bateman's has now become
a Sam Adams Brewhouse, the decor being pretty much the same.
I remembered there was a fake Duclaw at the Southwest
terminal, and the beers there are good.

The walk from D to A is more desolate than usual, which is
bad indeed, owing to construction. The observation deck,
which I never thought I'd miss (all you see is blue and
orange anymore), I missed.

I ordered a burger "as rare as you'll make it" with double
onion strings ($1 per order, so $2). The bartender didn't
look too interested, and I didn't hold high hopes. What
came was in fact a rare burger with lots of onion strings,
not stellar in either the taste or the texture departments,
but quite acceptable. Euphoria, a brown ale billed as having
flavors of toffee, almond, and coffee, went pretty well but
was kind of cloying after a bit, with so much caramelliness
that I wonder if it was artificially flavored.

After a bit of a wander I resubmitted myself at the D pier
for security, which was pretty fast.

UA5917 ORD BNA 2120 2246 E45 12C

Stupid Continental lost my 12A seat assignment and replaced
it, apologetically, with 12C. Harbinger of my next flights,
where my seat assignments were totally screwed up, extra
annoying as I had tried to coordinate with Lilli for these.
Random delay on the incoming, mostly made up for by the
miracle of modern schedule padding. I called the hotel for
a shuttle and was promised one in 15 minutes; it came in
a bit over half an hour, close to midnight. The driver was
chatty and informed me that there were 62 hotels in the
immediate vicinity. 

The DoubleTree BNA gave me a quite nice suite with one
signal issue, which I didn't discover until I got up in the
middle of the night and walked around in bare feet - the
space between the living room and the bedroom was a swamp,
no doubt owing to defective drainage from the air
conditioner. Too late to do anything about that, but not a
huge big deal. What was a big deal was housekeeping trying
to come in when I had the do not disturb sign on. It turns
out that they had failed to put late checkout in my record,
despite the fact that the person who checked me in had
verified and granted my request.

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