Breakfast in Illinois

After 23 hours of travel time, we arrived in O'Hare Airport, Chicago at 5:45am last April 7, 2008. It was a pretty exciting journey for our little family. M & I had to take care of our little princess from the Philippines all the way to Illinois, USA. Not that easy when there's little leg room in the airplane and not much space for our baby to roll around...so she rolled on us.

We purposely chose an evening flight from Manila to Los Angeles (via Philippine Airlines) so that our 9-month old would be asleep for most of the 12-hour flight. Good thing too that we were able to fly Business Class; shorter check-in line and a nicer, more relaxed waiting area. Plus, the flight attendants tend to be more accommodating in Business Class.

We had to fly Economy on United Airlines from LA to Chicago, though. The plane was old and small. We were seated almost at the rear end of the plane and the area was a bit cramped. Our baby was fussy during the flight. Good thing we were seated beside a Filipino who was more understanding of the baby. However, I still saw some passengers looking irritated.

The company arranged for a limo service to meet us at airport. No, it wasn't a stretch limousine that picked us up but, still, it was a decent car. Our driver was a woman named Nancy who was very pleasant and tolerated our daughter's cries on our way to the Hawthorn Suites - our temporary home until we move to an apartment.

It was 15 degrees in Chicago when we arrived. Not bad. We slept for most of our first day, exhausted from the very long trip which seemed like eternity especially since we travelled with our baby. But before we headed off to dreamland, we had our very first Illinois breakfast at the hotel's restaurant - our first one for the next 6 months.