I must be getting used to this roomette things because I slept better than I had on previous train nights. We arrived Monday morning in Chicago and collected our bags. Our friends, Win and Neal, met us at the station and whisked us off to a fabulous orchid show at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.
I was expecting to see some amazing flowers, but I was not prepared for the whole thing to be dressed up like a circus, complete with the big top, the fun house, the popcorn stand, the band, and carousel animals, all displaying these amazing flowers.
The grounds are huge and this show was housed in a large building and adjacent greenhouses. Now, when I say “greenhouse” don’t picture the little tent-sized thing you have in your back yard. These were more like generous outdoor rooms all surrounded with glass, directly connected to the main building. You go through a door from the cool interior of the building and there you are in the warm humid controlled environment of the outdoor room. I took too many pictures to show you, but here are a few samples.
After we got our fill of the flowers, we browsed the gift shop for a while, then went into the café to order some lunch. B and I placed our order and then waited. And waited. Our friend’s food arrived and we waited some more. And then some more.
I finally went up to the counter and asked what happened to our order. They couldn’t find it. They took our order again and said it would be a few minutes. I was skeptical. To their credit, they were quite busy and glitches do happen. Finally, food arrived and we ate up.
Our friends dropped us off at our lodging downtown. We had been turned on to Sonder by a friend and had reserved our room in Chicago using the Sonder app. It is a contactless hotel chain, with properties everywhere and less expensive rates that most others. They send you a code to get in the door, a code to operate the elevator, and a code to get into your room.
I was a little nervous about all the codes working correctly. As we approached the door there were also three other people approaching as well. When I fumbled the door code, one of them said, “try the right-hand door.” I did and it was unlocked. At this particular Sonder, there is a tobacco shop on the second floor which is open to the public, so during business hours they leave the door to the street unlocked.
We headed for the elevator and the two other young women who also had large luggage with them decided to wait for the next elevator but the young woman who had suggested I try the door stepped in with us. She adeptly punched the elevator code and asked us which room we were in. On the ride up I said, “So I take it you’ve stayed here before.” She said, “I work here”. We explained we wanted to stash our luggage in the free lockers on the 4th floor, and she said, “let me see if I can get you into your room early.”
So, we waited for about 15 minutes in the area by the luggage storage while she went to see about our room. In a moment, the other two women appeared from the elevator and were able to stash their luggage in the available locker which we had NOT taken. So, win-win, they got storage and we got our room!
The room is large and lovely and quiet. I was afraid that being right on the street the “EL” was on that we would hear trains going by all night long. As it turned out, our room was toward the back and the sound of the train going by in front of the building was more like an ocean wave and did not bother us at all.
As soon as we saw the big comfy bed, we decided to “just take a short nap.” A few hours later it was dinner time and we abandoned any thoughts of trying to do anything else that day. After a little research online, we found a delicious dinner right across the street at a middle-eastern place called Naf Naf. It was very simple to order online and then just walk across the street to pick it up. And it was yummy.
We knew that we would be doing some running around in Chicago and B had researched the public transit. We decided we should each have a “Ventra” card with a three-day pass on it. I downloaded the Ventra app to my phone and was able to purchase a digital Ventra card for each of us and register them in the app. We were all set for tomorrow’s public transit adventures.
We thought.
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Adrian Dee, flutist, composer 