Chicago, Chicago

That is a misleading title that is, but I wanted to capture your attention :-0

A great session on retention of online learners, and I will summarise in this posting after I get an adaptor for the laptop. Also attended a session on Trends in Continuing Education, and again was struck by the similarities with TAFE NSW. The key issue was about needing to be innovative, provision of electronic learning, and funding.

Flew from New Orleans to Chicago, and then on to Londonon. It had taken an hour to check in, because American Airlines only had one person on, and there were about 100 people to check in, 2 hours before the flight. The man behind me rang American to complain, and I laughed. He and I were both searched in New Orleans Airport (coincidence :-).

The plane, quite separately, was 40 minutes late. The flight attendant was a scream, saying that if our flight turned into a cruise, we could locate our swimming aids under the seats :-) When the seatbelt sign went off after landing, he said "All rise".I compunded this by (yes I take full responsibility!) waiting for my bags, which of course were going straight to London - duh! One of the baggage assist people ran with me to the lift, explaining how I had to get a train, etc.

Chicago people were just wonderful - half the carriage on the train to the Terminal were saying, "you'll be fine, you've got 45 minutes before it leaves". Of course, the security/immigration lines were astronomical, so I let a TSA employee know that my boarding time was 5 minutes ago, and she was amazing. The man checking my passport was joking that we could all have a therepeutic cry :-) It was a very funny time, and things like this really make the travel part come alive. It was the fastest check in I have ever had, and everybody will know how good that was!

I had also said to my seat mate on the flight to Chicago that I have had a fabulously smooth trip so far, with every landing and public transport no effort (thank you to my travel agent! who I won't name as I don't think she can keep up with demand), touch wood.