Thursday, August 7, 2008

Harry Potter and Chicago

So Hava and I finally made it into our room at the conference in Chicago! We had a time of it.

We left the office after a hectic half day yesterday at about 1pm. We decided to stop at Sonic in St Paul for lunch (who knew we had a Sonic in Minnesota?!) We had some delicious burgers, tots and limeades, and then got on the road in earnest. Things were going well, until we hit road construction and then horrible rain! The good news is that my car got 45 miles to a gallon for the first 5 hours of the trip. Regardless of the traffic and the rain, we pulled into the hotel lot at about 8pm, and made our first effort to check in.

Bad news. They didn't have us in the right room for last night, even though I had called two weeks prior to confirm. CRAP. The hotel was 100% booked, and so the only room they could give us had several issues...it was a parlor room, with a sofa bed and rollaway cot, and it wouldn't be ready until after midnight. Hava and I thought that this place sucks. Anyways, they did give us some vouchers for the bar, which was nice though we both got drunk on the strong drinks and no food.

Last night was also the opening of the Harry Potter conference we were at - they had a whole day of Wizard Rock. I'm definitely glad we didn't come for the whole day of Wrock, because it was (not surprisingly) sort of lame. It was a concert, in a ballroom, with every light on in the place, and chaperones sitting at tables in the back. Ha, awesome. However, we did actually like Draco and the Malfoys and Harry and the Potters, even picking up a t-shirt in the process.

Today, we started off with free breakfast (delicious) because my anger at the Hilton got us some free stuff. Then we wandered around Michigan Avenue for a few hours, waiting for our next (and final) room to be ready. We both bought some shoes. We came back to the hotel, checked in for Terminus (that's the conference name) and again tried to check in for our room. The people at the front desk sucked, so we decided to go up to the executive floor and try our luck there. Thank God for Isabel and Robert M - they are single handedly trying to make up for our bad experience thus far.

So now we are in the room (we got upgraded for free, thanks to Isabel) trying to relax for a bit before we meet some friends for dinner at Carmine's. (Yes, we are skipping the Opening Feast, I know, I know.) After dinner, we are coming back because I have to be in a trivia tournament...let's see how much HP I know.

So that's the news for now. More to come!!

-SKH

No comments: