So here I am bloggin’ from San Francisco. Pretty cool, huh? While Sim is geeking it up at a training-something-or-other, I am being a little princess and doing absolutlely nothing. You all envy me now, dontcha? Well, don’t turn into a green-eyed monster too quickly, it didn’t start out this good….
Let me go back to the beginning. Sim and I had a great flight; quick, early even and most importantly, uneventful. Just the way I like it. Then we got onto the SF version of the monorail (not sure what the call it exactly, but you get the point) to take us to BART. So far so good. We took BART to the exit nearest the hotel we were staying in for the next few days. At this point both Sim and I are starting to get tired (travelling, no matter how far, really wears me out) but still in good moods. The night is warm, the air is crisp, and we are on vacation, dammit! It doesn’t get any better. Yeah, well, as it turned out, we thought it too soon. We knew the BART stop is only a few blocks from the Howard Johnson we reserved. Down two and over three or something simple. Not far enough to worry about getting a cab or anything. Except that once we went “down two” we were suddenly in not the best neighborhood. And that is putting it nicely. I think the highlight of the walk was navigating my rolling suitcase around a used maxi-pad on the sidewalk. I kid you not. Ewww.
At this point I am starting to look at every person as a mugger and wonder if, presented with the situation, I could take ’em. Drunk people are staggering by and I swear I saw an actual prostitute. It’s right about this time that Sim mentions he doesn’t have the actual address for the hotel and wanted to make sure we are on the right street. He tries to call Nick to pull up their website because Sim’s Internet-accessible phone doesn’t want to load the hotels page. No answer. I ask him to call 411. After a few moments (and several would-be-muggers passing me by) they connect him to the Howard Johnson near the airport. Yeah, NOT the hotel we are staying at. Sim asks if they have the address for our hotel and they say no and hang up on him. Grrrreat. So back to 411. Only this time Sim mentions specific streets and asks by location. They tell him they have no such listing and good-bye. Once again, great customer service.
I am now trying to breathe and Sim is telling me he loves me. Not the best indication of things going well. So we back-track a little ways to a Starbucks which happens to be connected to a gas station. Pure class. Here, Sim whips out his laptop and connects it through his phone. Praise the Internet and all things holy, it WORKS. We pull up HoJo’s site and we are only a block and a half away.
So we drag our scared, grumpy asses to the hotel to find it is just about the worst dump I have ever seen. The lobby is locked and we have to be buzzed in. We open the doors and are over powered with the strongest, cheap cologne I have ever smelled. I think I literally gagged. The clerk mumbles a few words I can barely understand and we head up to our room. It’s up three flights of stairs and there is no elevator. Lovely. So I drag my bags behind me and open the door to our room. I think Sim mutters “the Motel 6 in Bellingham was better than this” and that is saying something. I sit on the very edge of the bed and do everything in my power not to cry.
Sim looks heart-broken and tells me to just tell him what I am thinking. So I say “we are in the ghetto, this place is a dump, and my skin is crawling. What do you want me to say?” (I know I am a total bitch. But what do you want from me?) So Sim once again busts out his laptop to check the cancellation policy for the hotel. If anything, we are resourceful. Since we didn’t book through the hotel, we weren’t sure what to do. Sim calls Alaska Airlines (we are on their frequent flyer plan, which includes hotels and such) to see what we need to do. They say they will take care of everthing and move our reservation to a different hotel. They ask if we have any in mind. I think of several we passed along the way before we got into the scary part of town, but we decide to go with the Ramada his friend recommended before we booked the trip. Why, oh why, didn’t we listen to him then? Because I am cheap and wanted to save a few bucks. Never again I tell ya. So the lovely people at Alaska saved the day and it only ended up costing us a lowsy $24. Can you believe it?
We ended up staying the night simply because it was too late to do anything else and Sim needed to be up in a few hours. This morning Sim went to his training and I check us out of the piece-of-crap hotel. I called a cab to take me to the Ramada because there was no way I was walking through the ghetto alone with all the luggage. Trust me, it was worth the $5 cab ride.
Now here I sit, surrounded by crystal chandeliers, marble pillars, Victoria furniture and all the free Wi-Fi I can handle. There is a doorman and a bell-hop for crying out loud. They have a restaurant AND a Starbucks in the looby! I ate brunch in their lovely bistro with crystal glasses and cloth napkins. All I can say is God bless the Ramada Inn for enabling me to be a total princess. But in all honestly, don’t you think I deserve it?
