Messages from abroad, not massages from a broad

It’s inching ever so close to 5am and I had a sudden inclination to share my latest experiences.  I am currently in my hotel room in Washington DC and I’m staying at the Sheraton Four Points hotel.   I want to preface this by saying that I thought the room was small and somewhat disappointing, but I quickly accepted it’s (medicore) offerings and of my decision because I was booked for 5 nights here and there wasn’t anything that I could do about it now.  BUT, I went over to a colleagu’s hotel tonight and his place was wayyyyy more posh, wayyyyy bigger, wayyyyy nicer, and wayyyy more worth it.  This really irked me cause he paid $40 less a night than me and his room was twice as big, twice as nice, and just infinitely nicer than my piece of shit room.  I thought I was getting it pretty sweet with the complimentary internet, but he had free internet AND wifi too!  Ugh.  Hotel Madera is my recommendation for anyone that is looking for a decent hotel in DC.

Anyway, enough of that crap.  I got into the Disctrict of Columbia last night around 9pm.  The flight was OK and it was really nothing to write about because I slept through most of it.  The inflight movie was some never-heard-of-straight-to-video-or-made-for-tv movie called Neverwas, starring Ian McKellan, Aaron Eckhart, and Brittany Murphy to name a few.  The star quality of the cast was definitely there, but the premise of the movie was shite.  Something about a Psychiatrist leaving his job at some Ivy League school to work at some ward where his father was a patient.  Whatever!! For some reason ehough, I felt compelled to watch it (probably because of the cast), but in the end, it wasn’t entertaining enough for me and I fell asleep about 1/3 into it.  Basically, I slept too much on this flight.  These stupid American flights don’t offer up food with the price of the plane ticket anymore so there wasn’t much of a reason to stay awake or get up other than to get a beverage.  I fathom that I slept through 80% of the flight and this bit me in the ass last night. 

I couldn’t sleep and coupled with the fact that there was a 3 hour time difference, I was really fucked up!  I was up til 8am EST and rolled around in my bed forever.  The bed is a whole story on it’s own too.  I was lying in bed and it felt like the sheets were bunched up at the foot of the bed.  So I took a look and it turns out the sheets didn’t cover the entire mattress.  Now is it just me or does this seem really wrong?  Isn’t the purpose of the sheet to cover the mattress and provide some separation between me and bug filled dirty mattress?  Egads, I think that discovery really messed up my mind too because there was a good 4-5 inches of the mattress exposed.  I didn’t think it was a good idea to re-apply the sheet properly, mainly because I was too lazy, but out of principle, I didn’t think it was my job.  So I thought that maybe this was a one day mistake and tonight would be different, but I am more naive than I thought I was because the same shit happened again.  I think by the time my stay is over, I will be desensitized by the whole matter and I will enjoy sleeping with the bedbugs and whatever else comes out of the mattress, but I’m hoping that because it’s so fricking late right now, when my head hits that pillow, I won’t think about it and just fall asleep.  My plan is to sleep diagonally and/or across the bed to combat this case of retardedness.  For once, I think I’m actually going to fill out a comment card on my way out of this joint.  I’d complain now if it weren’t for the fear of the housekeepers ‘accidentally’ using my toothbrush as a toiletbowl brush.  Oh the dilemma, oh the drama!

So like I said, I eventually fell asleep around 8am and I had originally planned to get up 9ish.  My alarm went off and an hour of sleep just wasn’t enough so I proceeded to return to la-la land.  I woke up around 1pm with a mild/temporary head cold or something because my sinuses were kinda weird and my head felt funny.

WHOA!  INTERMISSION HERE!  I think someone just tried to get into my room.  WTF?!?!?! Some dude just walked into my door and touched the door handle I think.  I hear voices outside.  Kinda scary I have to say, but I think he’s gone now.  HOLY CRAP!

Back to my day now.  So I dragged my ass outta bed and went to Fuddruckers for lunch.  Have any of you ever gone there?  They are one of thousands of restaurants to claim that they have the best burger in the world.  I ordered a regular 1/4 burger with fries and a milkshake and it didn’t seem that big, but I was pretty full in the end and I didn’t even come close to finishing the fries or the milkshake.  I gotta get used to these American sizes and learn not to eat everything or order smalls for everything from hear on out.  The burger didn’t taste particularly special either and I guess it tasted alright, but it was just ordinary for me.  If you ever come here to visit me next year, I promise not to take you there unless you really really want to.  I’d rather eat McDonalds.

Anyway, the rest of my day consisted of me hopping on the Metro and giving myself self-guided tours of Virginia and Washington.  Since this trip was a house-hunting type of trip, I figured I would actually spend some time getting aquainted with the different areas in these neck of the woods.  I spent some time in this one area called Clarendon, which is predominantly white.  Can someone say ‘Can I borrow a cup of brown sugar?’?  (that’s my cheesy Bad Boys reference if you didn’t get it, where Martin Lawrence says that line in a very white voice).  It’s a super nice area and a lot of the complexes there are new so it would be a nice place to stay, but I think it’s totally out of my price range.  Damnit!!  I knew I shouldn’t have gone there.  Now it’s something that I know I cannot have, and that makes me want it even more!  It feels like Whistler there and the area is just nice, new, and clean.

My next stop was to travel down the blue Metro line to Van Dorn station.  This stop was practically at the end of the blue line and the area didn’t seem like it offered too much immediately outside of the station.  I am considering this area because I think the rent is cheaper there and a lot of the complexes there have a free shuttle to the Metro.  So that’s a bit of a draw for me.  I like to call this part of town butt-fuck-nowhere because it doesn’t look like anything’s happening there.  No cool bars, no cool clubs, no young people.  Argh, the pros and cons of these places is like night and day.

Those were the two big stops for me tonight (or yesterday if you really wanna get technical on me), and I think I’ll look around some more in Virginia in the next few days.  Speaking of the next few days, I need to have a nice meal while I’m out here since the company is paying for this trip.  So far I’ve been kind, eating McDonalds and California Pizza, but I will eat steak for dinner tonight.  Ruth Chris is calling my name.  OK.  That’s about all that’s coming to my mind so I’m calling it a night and I’m heading to bed.

Cya’ll soon ya hear now?

Anthony