Have you ever been to Chicago, Illinois? For one or two days? A week or maybe more? Did you go to the Millennium Park to take funny photos in front of The Bean? Did you walk alongside the Chicago River going the River Walk eastbound to the Lake Michigan? If you spend some time in the windy city, you will certainly agree that Chicago downtown is one of the most beautiful places in the United States.
One of the best places to see the city is more than 300 meter above the ground. From the observatory deck of the 360 Chicago, the former John Hancock Center, you can take a view of this gorgeous city. All these street canyons and high towers combined with an ocean of lights when you stare into the distance at night.
What you may not see while being on the tower is your way back home, especially when you want to take a plane to leave Chicago.
On a weekend trip, a few days ago, I arrived with a friend of mine at the O’Hare International Airport on a Friday afternoon. Two days later, we took the Blue Line from downtown to the Airport, unhappy to go back to Memphis.
At O’Hare, asking where to go, I told an assisting woman that we had the tickets from Southwest Airlines only on our phones but not printed. She answered me that we do not need the ticket printed and that we should just line up in front of the security check like all the other passengers.
One hour before the boarding time, we waited in the line assuming that we were in time and everything was good. But having a turn at the security check, we noticed that we had a big problem.
Chicago has to airports. And we were at the wrong place.
The security woman told us that Southwest departs from the Chicago Midway Airport and asked us what we were doing here. By train, Midway in the south of Chicago is one hour and seventeen minutes away from O’Hare. With less than one hour, it was impossible to make it in time with public transportation.
Another option was taking a car which according to Google Maps should take between thirty-five and fourty minutes at that time. We decided to take a taxi even though we had to pay a lot of money for the long distance. Everything was better than booking another plane.
At the taxi station, we saw the next problem coming up. There was a big line in front of the taxis and we knew we had to wait at least twenty minutes to get a taxi. That’s why we decided to call an Uber or Lyft with my phone.
But with my German contract I do not have internet access in the United States and I highly depend on a good Wi-Fi connection. The Wi-Fi did not work immediately and with the crappy old phone of my friend, it was not promptly possible to call a car. While we were wasting time trying to log into the internet, we were highly stressed.
It took us about fifteen minutes until we could start the trip from on airport to the other. We needed around 40 minutes to come from the O’Hare International Airport to our gate at Midway. A few minutes after boarding started, we arrived and finally departed to Memphis.
A big thank you goes to Ramon, the best Uber driver between O’Hare and Midway.
You safed us!
Philipp Saul 