Leaving Bloomington..

Yet another airport day. We went again to Chicago to change flight. For united and canada airlines, they utilise the "hub" system, meaning that they have a few major airports and all other states and towns will fly only to the nearest major airport. So there is no direct flight from Detriot to Indianapolis. (that was the previous plane trip) This time, I'm travelling out of the country - to Canada. We again have to go through Chicago airport. Yes, its the 3rd time I'm at this airport. My flight here was at 10.37am and I reach Chicago at 10.48am (Chicago is 1 hour slower). Seems like minutes. Lolx.

For the 3rd lunch here, we chose to eat at a food court like place. The concept is very similar. I ate lasagna, and after that, ice cream! Then we went over to the gates and waited there for a while before getting on the next plane at 1.16pm.

Touched down in Toronto! (at 4.30pm) My dad booked tickets for the airport shuttle bus in advance but couldn't print the document out cos we din have access to a printer. So when we reached the counter, my dad gave the person at the booth the booking number and he just printed out one ticket when my dad booked two. Then my dad realised it, he went back and asked the man to check again. He said he couldn't check and that we should have printed the document. My dad insisted that he had booked two tickets and that the man should check again. The man finally clicked something to try to look for the information - which he got VERY SOON. Its really funny, as well as ironic, that the most advanced country can't convey accurate and important information between the ticket booth and the online system. And the people receiving the printings usually will doubt it first, and call to check. So wad's the point of booking and printing out documents - other than saving money (its much cheaper if u book online. They are promoting online booking yet they do not have a good system in place. Omg!). If it wasn't for the discounts, I'd rather purchase the tickets on the spot, save a lot of trouble. AND the signs here are bad, the people working at the airport are ignorant, so it took us a while to locate the booth. We touched down at 4.30, got our luggages by 4.45 but missed the 5.00pm bus. Luckily they were frequent and we caught the 5.15pm one.

So our bus came and we reached the hotel - Intercontinental Hotel, pretty fast. It was the third stop. We checked in and rested a while from our long travelling time. (made long by the lack of direct flights) We ate a quick dinner at a Greek Restaurant down the street. The food was bad. =( And the waiters were very rude, one muttered smthg in Italian ( i assume it to be a very rude comment ) when we said we wanted to share one meal. Idiot! Another thing is, I feel that people in restaurants look down on people who don't drink alcohol/wine here. Which is stupid in my opinion. But their unhappiness may be derived from the fact that they get less tips. They expect customers to give 10-15% of their bill as tips (aka gratitude), paid separately from the bill. U can either leave it in the bill they give or on the table when u leave. So since alcohol is expensive, their tips would be, too.

Time for a good night's sleep. This hotel seems to be a good hotel. But their internet system is bad - we cant access it today, its down. And we have to "charge it to the room" and then they'll deduct it in the final bill. Its free, but they end up having more accounting to do (charge then take away), imagine if it doesnt tally. OMG!