Month: December 2014

Well here we are back in Bristol from what doesnt seem like a three week holiday! Yesterday in Chicago it was hot and stuffy so after we had walked around a little with time to spare after checking out, we decided to try Chicago’s famous Garrett’s popcorn which is awesome by the way!

Our taxi to the airport came rather early meaning that we had time to spare in O’Hare airport of which the check in was surprisingly easy for a change and with no dramas. It is worth noting that the toilets at the gate of O’Hare airport are not unisex meaning that one of my female PAs had to go in the male toilets, oh well, it’s their fault.

After an eight hour flight, we touched down at London Heathrow airport at 9 am this morning and that’s that!

Keep checking out Facebook and Twitter as we make plans for our next adventure in a years time!

Nath 🙂

The weather today wasn’t as bad as we thought, and it didn’t rain at all! Although it looked like it was going to this afternoon. As breakfast isnt complimentary in this hotel, we decided to go for a little stroll where we came across a cafe in the middle of some scaffolding (I’m painting a lovely picture of this place!) where the food was actually nice, surprisingly. We came up with an awesome plan to go and visit a very exciting place of mine, the train station! It looked majestic inside in terms of every detail of the architecture as opposed to British train stations. It upset me that we couldn’t go onto the platform as there were doors which we simply couldn’t walk through.

Our plan was also to go up the Willis (Sears) Tower which is the other observation deck in Chicago. Although we didn’t have a clue where it was, coincidently it was opposite the train station, an amazing spot by my camera happy PA, the otherside of a rather dodgy bridge, that my Irish PA would hate.

The Willis Tower claims to be one of the worlds tallest buildings (but they all say that), but it is 262 Michael Jordan’s high! The views at the top were stunning consisting off mainly clouds, but at least you could see downwards, especially within the glass box which overhangs the building.

We then decided to update all of our social media in Starbucks before heading to another majestic landmark which was the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. This wasn’t a normal fountain, it was supercalifragilisticexpialdocious (according to my PA). As you can tell I have gone a bit made having wrote this blog now for 17 days, but hey! Currently my PA is singing songs from cartoons that I don’t have a clue about (FYI it’s Arthur the Aardvark).

As skys were becoming darker and darker, we resorted to returning back to the hotel where Stuart, the Wheelchair engineer came to Super Bunny’s rescue with a new joystick, at the expense of O’Hare Airport. For dinner, we decided to experience Chicago’s magical and famous deep dish pizza where my PA’s decided to stuff themselves but I took a more easier approach.

Tomorrow, the weather forecast predicts that it will be hot and sunny in the morning before thunder storms hit so we plan to go on the architectural boat tour and then shelter somewhere so we don’t get hit by the lightening!

See you Friday morning, Nath 🙂

Well if you know me, you will know that nothing is ever easy and this was certainly the case yesterday when I travelled from my cousins to Chicago!

We spent a relaxing morning at my cousins (being fed far too much food…I won’t mention the burnt nachos) which I can’t thank enough for letting us stay with them, before a short taxi from theirs to London airport where I finally managed to pay for something! The staff all seemed really helpful so such a small airport and quickly came up with a solution as to how to get my electric wheelchair onto the aircraft unlike the drama we had at JFK. The flight was delayed around an hour due to bad weather conditions and busy airspace in Chicago so meant that I could spend more time with my cousins before saying goodbye.

Once we boarded the plane and started taxiing, we found out that we couldn’t take off for around another 25 mins still waiting for the all clear from Toronto air management. we landed in Chicago O’hare around an hour after and, as before, this is where the drama began!

The ground staff were useless! We had asked for my electric wheelchair to be brought to the aircraft for me to disembark into, however they bought an aisle seat which I do not use as I walk off the aircraft, my PAs explained this and so the ground staff then went and found a manual wheelchair, again my PAs tried correcting them asking again for my electric wheelchair and then my manual wheelchair showed up. Forth time lucky I was finally able to get off the plane to sit in Superbunny. Once again, it wouldn’t turn on, but this time we had assumed again they had disconnected the battery after my PAs had specifically told them not to as we have a Bunny Tranquiliser (battery imoboliser) so my PAs got on the floor whilst about 5 guys were standing round looking as they tried to reconnect the battery whilst still on the airfield. After a short while the ground staff saw my PAs struggling and offers to help. When we reconnected the battery we thought everything was fine until I realised that the joystick had lost it’s resistance meaning that it was undrivable! By this time, my PAs had had enough as this is the second time it has happened in a week so went on a mission to complain and file a damage report and attempt to receive some compensation for the inconvenience and cab fares that we have missed at both airports for having to spend time filling out damage report forms which took 2 hours.

After the claim was filed and they had figured out how to use their own computer system, we were escorted out to the taxi rank. As usual, communication was poor between the airport staff and transportation staff as they decided to shout at us about I don’t know what because I had switched off by his point.

Finally a taxi showed up around 9:45pm which was 10:45 in Canadian time zone so we were all knackered and for now we were on the homestretch, obviously not! We got to the hotel and went to check in and, as we found in Europe, they didn’t read the notes on the booking confirmation regarding wheelchair accessibility and adjoining rooms for which they had neither. The only way around it was for them to transfer 2 of us to another hotel which we were reluctant to do. Out of the blue, a random woman from Canada (who was slightly drunk!) overheard our conversation and realised that her friends in an accessible room and kindly volunteered them to move rooms for which we accepted and all was resolved. We finally had dinner at around ten to midnight (we were now very grateful for my cousins over feeding us).

We have had a lazy morning this morning apart from one PA who has spent the whole morning on the phone with the engineer who is going to try and fix Superbunny and the very unhelpful United Airlines! All morning she has been passed from person to person in which nobody is able to offer the right help or information!

We about to go down for something for breakfast which will be classed as lunch and then go up the John Hancock tower as it’s not too far from the hotel.

See you in the morning

Nath 🙂

Today went rather quickly as I had my cousins visiting for which we tried to have a BBQ but the English weather came and caught us up and so we all stayed inside. Whilst the was happening one decided to brave the rain and stoke up the BBQ under an umbrella, funnily enough, as soon as we sat down to eat the sun came out, typical!

I forgot to mention this morning that on the train to London, Ontario, a part of our luggage had been put in the fridge during all the commotion which we later realised contained my wheelchair charger, so hopefully it still works! Although we don’t really need it now.

Tomorrow, we plan to have a relaxed morning before the fun starts again, when we head to London airport to catch the plane to Chicago and hopefully this time my wheelchair will go on the plane without any problems.

See you Tuesday, Nath 🙂