Frozen Greetings from Chicago

I've been in Chicago just a week now, and I can confirm that I was right all along: I hate Chicago winters. It was bloody cold the night I arrived, and the second day it snowed—the first time I'd seen snow fall in thirteen years. I wouldn't have been disappointed if it turned out to be the last.

However, since then it's snowed more and now much of the US is in the grip of "unseasonable" cold, sometimes called "dangerously freezing weather" by the TV news people. As I write, the temperature is around MINUS 12 degrees (10 degrees in American temperature), and the windchill (which means how cold the wind makes the air temp feel on exposed skin, like hands or cheeks) is around minus 18 (minus 1 in American temperature). The expected high for today is minus 4 (around 24 American degrees).

Needless to say, perhaps, I'm not used to such cold. While I bought myself a knit hat and gloves (US$2.99 each at Target—such a deal!) on my first day here, I decided it's best if I just wait until things warm up a little before I venture outside. So, with little else to to but watch TV, I thought maybe a blog update would help pass the time.

The trip to the US was delayed by three hours as they replaced a de-icing unit on the Air New Zealand plane, something, I dunno, I thought was kind of a good idea. But that meant I'd miss my connecting flight in Los Angeles. The Air NZ staff re-booked me, but I still had to check-in for the new United Airlines flight in Los Angeles.

I've said this before, but probably not here: LAX is the worst airport I've ever been to anywhere in the world. The main reason is the total lack of any directional signs to tell you where to go or how to get there. Not only do they not tell you where the terminals are, once you get to it there are no signs telling you where to go inside it. Inexcusable treatment of passengers, especially tired ones just off a trans-Pacific flight.

Once I found the check-in at the United terminal, I was relieved to see a relatively short line, maybe a quarter the size of the line I had in Auckland, which took me about 20 minutes to get through. I should have known better: It took nearly an hour to get through the line, mostly because the agents spent around 20-25 minutes with each passenger (I timed them). I was beginning to think the agents were writing everything out longhand and sending the information by carrier pigeon, but the real culprit was that there weren't anywhere near enough agents. Staff cutbacks, I was told.

No food is served on United flights anymore, even a long one like from Los Angeles to Chicago. Instead, you can buy a US$5 box of junk food. I was warned about that, though, and bought my own junk food at LAX.

The flight was very basic, but basically okay, too, apart from the sound system not working on the two movies they tried to show. Once in Chicago, the plane was taken to the wrong gate and we had to wait several minutes trapped inside the plane while they sent for an agent to baby sit the gate door as we left the plane (the clerk didn't seem to be actually doing anything). Part of that time was spent in total darkness, since the plane had no power until they restarted the engines to provide lights.

Being at the wrong gate meant a long walk to baggage claim, and there I saw my one complaint about O'Hare: They ought to tell you on a the arrivals monitor where the bags were being deposited (the flight crew didn't tell us on arival; probably they didn't know). Mind you, LAX doesn't tell you which carrosel to go to, either.

I'm told that by current American standards, I had an excellent "flying experience". I'm told that due to continuing staff cutbacks, customer service is now a quaint nostalgic concept and long delays and cancelled fligfts are common. I don't know about all that, but the staff I encountered in the US were (mostly) friendly and helpful, thought clearly overworked. Air New Zealand was more than excellent and that flight, despite the delay, was great. I highly recommend them; United, not so much.

One pleasant surprise was with the passport control people at LAX: They were friendly and efficient in dramatic contrast to what I experienced in my previous arrivals. They still don't tell citizens "welcome home", as I think they should, but I'm not complaining. On a related note, the TSA agents at LAX were fine—bored, uninterested and definitely not friendly, but not the arbitrary authoritarian bullies they're often portrayed as.

Here are a few things I've noticed about my homeland in the week I've been here:

• TV ads seem to be mostly for prescription drugs, an alarming number of which appear to have "potentially fatal" side effects. Some of the ads for non-prescription remedies would never be allowed on NZ television.
• When Americans say "extra large" for food or clothes, they mean it. Probably the first leads to the second, but that's another subject.
• The local grocery store has far more aisle space devoted to ice cream and frozen desserts than it gives to tinned fruits and vegetables or other more or less "healthy" foods. Actually, the frozen desserts aisle is three times larger than the pet food aisle.
• Prices overall—for food, clothes, technology—are roughly comparable to what we pay in New Zealand, mostly thanks to the strong NZ dollar. If the exchange rate was worse, American products would be much more expensive than the same or similar items would be in New Zealand. As it is, I've found some things to be surprisingly expensive, but the vast number of choices in every category means it's still possible for a New Zealander to get good value for money; not great value, maybe, but good value.
• My fellow Americans are still friendly, especially if I'm friendly to them first. Americans are often portrayed overseas as excessively paranoid, suspicious and prejudiced, but I haven't yet found that in anyone I've met. However, most times when it's come up, people have no idea where New Zealand is (no surprise).

It's been an intersting trip, and productive. I've done what I needed to do, so I'm really just marking time until I go home, which I'm really anxious to do. On the other hand, I'm spending the coming weekend with my family, and that'll be nice.

In many ways, it doesn't seem like it's been eight years since I was last here, but there are plenty of things that seem foreign to me, in every sense of the word. Maybe that's just the passage of time.

I'll have more observations later, and also an update about the trip home, and a comprehensive podcast after that. But this weekend I'm going to post a little audio from this trip, and maybe a photo or two.

For now, I'll just concentrate on staying warm.