Tuesday, September 18: Getting There is Half the Fun

Ron and I loved Edinburgh, from our first visit in late 2001.  Ron was of Scottish extraction- his great-great-(multiple) grandfather had left from Dundee as an indentured servant, accused of mismanaging the estate he’d run.  He ended up on a plantation in Georgia but eventually fled to the hills of Tennessee where, Ron said, he married a Cherokee woman “so old and so ugly the Cherokees didn’t want her”.  My ancestry is boring by comparison.

We fell in love with the land, the history and the whisky and made a few return trips, once to visit the Orkneys and once, over a four-day weekend, to catch an exhibit of items from the last of the Romanovs at the Royal Museum of Scotland.  This time I was returning only with a bit of Ron’s ashes and lots of plans and memories.

Being the nervous traveler I am, always worrying about what can go wrong, I’d booked a 6-hour layover in O’Hare.  Weather was clear and sunny, of course and the plane was on time.  No problem- United had just opened their new Polaris Lounge in O’Hare and I figured it would be a nice place to hang out before the flight to Edinburgh. 

I was right.  I’d spent plenty of time at the American Airlines Admiral’s Club lounge in ORD as a Business Class passenger but this was above and beyond the Admiral’s Club, which typically provides a limited selection of munchies for free (others for sale) and coupons for two free alcoholic drinks.  The Polaris lounge was huge, had a wonderful variety of foods in the buffet and had unlimited alcohol (although I had only two glasses of a very good Sauvignon Blanc, knowing there’d be more on the plane).  I nearly followed a nice Asian lady into the bathroom before I realized they were individual unisex rooms, immaculately clean.  Showers and sleep spaces were also available.  It was up to the standards of European lounges and that’s saying a lot.  Six hours (!) passed quickly and comfortably.

The flight was equally comfortable; my first-world complaint was that I had to push all the covers, pillows and other amenities out of the way to make room for my body!