So i'm really tired of either having to take a 15 minute drive to school to use the internet or having to sit in my car and find a place to park near a hotel that has an unprotected connection and i'm thinking thus of getting a wireless card so i can use the internet in my apartment, got a couple questions though?

Whats the farther range a network card could get? the hotels are about a mile away driving (according to google) but a lot of building etc in the path from my house to the hotel

2. Is there a decent/good card that would be able to pick up those connections? Don't need anything thats uber amazing just enough i can get a connect so i can browse the interwebz.