Get-Away Foibles

Oh, hi there!

Ok, I promised you details on our semi-botched attempt at a romantic get-away. I say "semi-botched" because even though so much was sub par, any time with my husband (especially away from our normal routine) is prized above all else. We can manage to have fun in any overtly un-fun situation (see earlier post on camping). Nothing can ruin the inner core of our fun...not even the Hyatt or a Minnesota deep freeze. Keep that in mind as I proceed on to my complaints.

First, the freaking frigid frozen weather (the alliteration, there, is meant to give effect of shivering). Keep in mind...our get-away was in Minneapolis. Seriously. This should be the easiest get-away ever. It's even pushing the boundaries of the term "get-away", since we're maybe 15 minutes from our destination. But because of the snow, we had to prepare as if we were getting on a plane to Hawaii. For instance, we can't just leave and not shovel, since we're caretakers. So we arranged for a friend of Dave's to shovel while we're gone. Ultimately, there was only one day we needed covered...but the forecast for that one day called for massive amounts of snow. So I asked Dave to confirm with his friend....I mean, people may agree to do things, but actually doing them (in blizzard-like conditions) is a whole other story. Dave cannot reach the friend, and furthermore we do not know if the friend has a key or needs a key, etc. Also, we only have on-street parking so we need to find a place to bring our second car in case there's a snow emergency on the single day we'd be unable to move the car. This involves another long complicated story, the result being that we drive to South St. Paul in the before-mentioned blizzard conditions to drop the car off at my parents' house. This ends up taking about 40 freaking frigid frozen weather minutes because the roads were so bad. The experience was terrifying. There were tears. After that, we still had to drive back to our place, gather our stuff, shovel the snow that has already fallen and hope that Dave's friend will in the end keep his promise to shovel the next day, and then make our treacherous way to Minneapolis...passing at least one major accident on our 20-miles-per-hour way.

Yay! You'd think since we arrived safely at the hotel we could finally relax and enjoy. Except there's a high school debate conference going on at the hotel. The weekend before Christmas, and there's a high school debate conference?? Seriously? We ignore the implications of this and simply check in to our room, relax, and then dress to go down to dinner in the hotel's restaurant...which I checkout out on the hotel's lying-though-its-digital-teeth website. The hotel's restaurant is mysteriously closed for dinner. Which, you know, makes sense. Why would a restaurant be open for something like dinner? Especially when on the deceptive website it says they're open until 11pm? I know. Stupid of us, right? Nobody can give an explanation, making it seem all the more part of a nefarious plot. So we're stuck eating at their lame "sports bar" (I guess we could have eaten somewhere else downtown, except it was 100 degrees below zero and we'd rather face a sports bar than go outside again).

The sports bar is even more annoying than most. There are TVs everywhere; we even have a TV at the table. We can't turn this TV off. Plus, there is apparently a single waiter responsible for the entire place...and the place is packed, since there is nowhere else to eat in the hotel (except fancy-schmancy Oceanaire...for which us, the high school debaters, and all the fat people wearing Vikings jerseys neglected to bring appropriate attire). Also, the food is crazy expensive. It's like extortion. They remove all other food-sources, they know a certain number of us did not bring appropriate attire/funds for Oceanaire, and they know most of us won't venture into 100 degrees below zero weather. So why not charge $15 for a cheeseburger! Bastard people.

That's not the worst, though. Remember the place is packed, so we took one of the few remaining places to sit...which was directly across from a young debater and her elderly coach (or something). They were both crazy-loud...in that really loud way drunk people talk, especially when they think they're being clever or funny. The girl in particular was not only loud, but talking at hyper-speed and interspercing every other word with "like." It went: "IwassolikeupsetlikebecauselikeI'mtheonlypersonIevenlikeknowwholikereadsanythinglikeseriousor importantyouknowandliketheresnobodylikeIcanevenliketalktolikewhoislikeevenatmylikelevel." And the old man was drinking, nodding, staring at her chest and saying "totally, man, I totally know what it's like!" For a moment, I thought they must be fake people. You know? Maybe these were theater people rehearsing for a comedy; maybe its improv. Maybe parody. But they were so loud that Dave and I couldn't hold our real-person conversation. Then the worst thing happened. The "like" girl started talking about James Joyce, and making incorrect (yet arrogant) assertions about Ulysses. Now, I imagine James Joyce might be a topic that...if you're an insufferable teenager trying to impress a drunken older man with how well-read you are...you may feel is safe enough to tackle. The chances that you would be seated next to a couple people who know quite a BIT about James Joyce and Ulysses, and who could totally get up in your face and correct you on every point, probably wouldn't occur to that insufferable teenager. This was causing a painful physical reaction in Dave. I mean, imagine the MOST annoying people you have ever been around, and they start talking about a semi-arcane subject that you just happen to have studied in graduate school, and they're making tons of huge errors but nonetheless remain quite openly and loudly impressed with their "knowledge". Dave wants to go over and have a Joyce-knowledge slamdown; he's squirming and can't concentrate on anything except all the misinformation about Joyce that's being bantered back and forth at the table across from us. But I think that perhaps the one thing more annoying than these people would be us, in a sports bar, getting into a fight with drunken people about James Joyce. We desparately start looking for a different place to sit but it's packed. So we try to ignore them ("tune it out, Dave....seriously, look at me...look into my eyes....ignore them!"). Our lukewarm food arrives. We try to refocus our annoyance on that. Finally, they switch subjects (at least) and eventually they finally leave altogether. Soon we leave as well, after grudgingly shelling out $50 for two burgers and two beers.

Things go pretty well after that, until about midnight...at which point, we hear lots of doors banging, arguments in the hall, raised voices. After about 30 minutes of that, Dave calls the front desk and asks for the manager on duty. He's on hold for a long time, then finally talks to the manager and says there seems to be an argument in the hall that's been going on for some time, and could they send someone up. He's told (seriously) that unless they get more complaints, they're not going to do anything. It goes on for 30 more minutes and Dave calls again and this time his call is "disconnected". Around 1:30 it's still going on, plus there's loud noise coming from the room next to us as well. Dave calls again and basically says if they won't do anything about the noise they better move us. They send someone up right away, while we're packing up all our belongings at 1:30am. We now hear security banging on doors and telling people to be quiet. When security comes to our room with a new room key, there are four guards in the hall. Our guard escorts us to the executive floor, and he's super apologetic...but we learn from him that they've gotten a LOT of complaints and have moved quite a number of couples. Dave tells him what we were told the first time he called, and the guard seems disgusted that nothing was done with the first call (note: I have since wrote a letter of complaint about all this).

The good thing is that we have a fabulous view from our new room, overlooking Nicollet Mall. They also comped us a breakfast buffet (not really adequate compensation, but especially considering how expensive their food is we happily took what we could get and ate enough for five people -- take that Hyatt!). So, we're trying to make the best of things. We decide to go to Macy's to see their 8th floor display, and we take the skyway since it's still 100 below zero. That's all well and good, but about halfway there, the skyway is closed. Us and a young family are forced out into the cold, even further from our destination then if we had just walked right from our hotel in the first place. Futhermore, it's seriously icy and I can barely walk...both Dave and I came close to falling a number of times. Additionally, we're not really dressed for the cold because, well, we thought we'd be in the skyway!

nyway, we do make it to Macy's....shaken up but ok. I overhear a family talking about the Holidazzle Parade and it occurs to me that we'll be able to actually watch the parade from our new hotel room! Things turn around a bit....we have a fun day, we buy hats and scarves for our trek back to the hotel, we have a lovely lunch at the Oak Room.

We get back to our room around 4:30...the room is not made up yet, but compared to everything else that doesn't seem like such a big deal. We decide to go hang out in the hot tub...which, I guess, now is part of their big fitness area that you have to pay extra to enter. So. Thwarted again by the nefarious plot. We decide to order room service for dinner, which is still expensive but at least tastes better than the sports bar food. Plus...they charge a $5 delivery fee, a $2.50 service fee, and automatically add on 18% gratutity. So...seriously? Aren't we paying for the same thing, basically, in three different ways? Then on the bill there's a place for "tip". Oh, those crazy hotels! Whatever. That's the way of the world, I guess. We had our dinner and got our chairs positioned to watch the Holidazzle Parade....only to find out the parade was cancelled due to it being 100 below zero.

The next morning we check out and our stay was topped off by problems with the "automatic" parking payment machines (yes, on top of all this we had to pay $17/day for parking). We followed the directions on the machine, paid via credit card, but did not get the receipt we supposedly needed to show on our way out of the ramp that we paid. Dave had to call someone on the "help" button, and that didn't really get anywhere because of the language barrier and also because it was clear the guy didn't know what to do about it. In the meantime, a group of people had gathered around and were watching this interaction, making comments to each other ("What...he didn't get a receipt?" "I guess not, they're calling for help." "Is the guy going to come up?" "Let's see what happens!"). I finally snapped at these people and then felt bad about it later. Finally we just said forget it and left...only to realize we neglected to note where we parked (I suppose we were just so stressed out about the getting-there, that once we arrived our brains shut down). Finally we found the car, but upon attempting to leave were told we owed $2 to account for all the time we took after initially paying for parking (basically, paying for the additional time it took for us to attempt to get a receipt in order to prove we paid). Frustrating conversation ensued, the result of which was that they "waived" the $2 so we could exist this hell.

Things were much nicer once we got home. Dave's awesome friend shoveled, it was quieter, we had better food, and I finally was able to catch up on my sleep. Like I said, we did have fun just being together. But I think we'll do a B&B for our next get-away.