The Hotel Life

Our house won't be available until the 6th of May, so until then, that'll mark the longest consecutive amount of time that I've lived out of a hotel.

Hotel living is kind of odd.

I never feel completely comfortable, mainly because I am always thinking about people that have walked on this carpet before me.

Someone that's used this shower before me.

And the sheets.

And the towels.

I'm not a germaphobe by any means, but just the thought that possibly hundreds of people have been through here just kind of grosses me out.

And I know - the housekeepers come through and vacuum and put in clean sheets everyday, but even that in itself is weird.

I mean, imagine (for those of us who don't have maids or butlers or servants) someone coming in to your house every afternoon, replacing the sheets and pillows on your bed and giving you new towels for the next day? Kind of weird.

Over this past road trip, and right now, I have stayed in a La Quinta (good for the money), Westin (terrible for the money), Sheraton (also terrible), Hampton Inn (pretty good) the Oxford Inn - which was also nice, and now the Residence Inn - which is probably the best I've been in over the past week.

The nice thing about this Residence Inn is that they do a free breakfast (and not the standard continental kind - the better than IHOP kind) and on top of that they do free beer and dinner from 5:30 to 7:30.

We have taken full advantage of the breakfast and dinner (and beer for me) for the past 2 nights that we've been here.

Who wouldn't? I mean breakfast at the cheapest is usually $8 for us - if we're eating at a place like McDough - and Dinner is at the cheapest twice as much. Why not save the money and eat off the hotel's dime?

I personally was questioning how they could afford feeding us two meals a day. I mean, there are 4 floors in this building with at least 50 rooms per floor. That's a lot of effing mouths to feed. (And a lot of beer and wine too!)

Another thing for me about feeling weird in hotel living is that I know it's temporary. I know I won't be here for even longer than 2 weeks. And knowing that, I can't really make it my own. It's definitely not my furniture. And I'm not going to tack up any posters on the wall or play my music as loud as I want to. There are people across the hall and above me that I've obviously got to be considerate to.

Tomorrow is the wife's first day on the job.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself (or with the dog) while she's gone. She's taking the only car to work...and there really isn't much around here for me to do.

I'm thinking of walking to starbucks to day trade there.

At least I can get away from this hotel for a bit. And get out and walk around.

The whole free breakfast/dinner/beer thing I think is starting to show up on my gut. It's been more than 2 weeks now since I've broken a sweat from exercising for more than 30 minutes.

I mean, what is the first thing you do when you get in to a hotel room for the first time? After unpacking and unloading? For me, it's turning on the TV to see what channels they have in the area. Fox on channel 10! TNT on channel 28! Crazy! Heh.

And of course, you get all the premium channels you always want for yourself at home but never will splurge the extra $8 a month for.

I can't imagine how people who travel on a normal basis do it. I wonder at which point they get used to seeing different cities and experiencing different hotels.

I know for sure that I haven't reached it yet.