Greetings from the Pacific time zone! 3 hours behind the East Coast. I've been keeping my wrist watch with Eastern time and my cell on Pacific time, so I know when to call people. This is probably ridiculously unnecessary and causes extra confusion, but I'm going with it for now. I'm writing this blog from the comforts of my canopy bed. There's lights inside and the curtains close. It almost feels like I am camping. I was really excited to see that this hotel offered a canopy bed room, so I was quick to snatch it up. When I checked in, however, they had bumped me up to a "better, bigger room" because I am a hotel rewards member. This "bumping up" seems to be a trend, but more on that later. So they gave me a bigger room, but no canopy. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted a canopy bed. My mom, for whatever reason, was anti-canopy and even when my grandmother bought me one, my mom sent it back. It was an unfilled dream and it was supposed to come true this week. I hate complaining, especially about excellent service, but I called the desk and asked where my canopy was. They were all full for the evening, but I could get one for the next two nights. I just walked into my hotel room from work about an hour ago and went to my new room. I jumped into my big canopy bed and I'm not leaving until dinner! I feel like a camping princess! I was also supposed to get a pet fish today, but there's no fish here either. I just might be a bigger pest and ask for one to be sent up. When else can you get a complimentary friend to stay with?! The hotel is pet friendly, though shockingly clean, fancy, and doesn't smell like pet. There's even a little dog bowl and welcome mat at the front door of the hotel. It says "Hotel Monaco Welcomes Roofus, Jack, and Oscar." Or something. Pet names. How cute is that!!
So far California has been absolutely amazing. Marin county was my favorite. That's just north of San Fran. I could spend the entire week there. I must have cried out of pure amazement 10 times. I was physically shaking and my jaw was quivering, I was just so absolutely astonished. Cities are not my thing, but the backroads of Marin truly make a person believe that God and heaven exist. I can't wait to go back there later in the week. I almost have very little desire to hang out in the city - parking stresses me out, as do the crowds, homeless people, and lack of chain restaurants. Even Marin county doesn't really have chain restaurants or grocery stores.
My rental car this week is a Hyundai Elantra, a car I had before. Though this one is much nicer. The Enterprise people first tried giving me a huge Chrysler, leather seats, fully loaded. It's hood stuck out like 3 feet. No way that I could parallel park it. There were no cars available in my class so they told me to wait a bit for a smaller one. So I waited and they brought me to a Ford "Escape," the smallest of Ford's SUVs. The car looked huge, much bigger than an Escape should. I asked if it was hard to pararallel park. They guy said, "oh no! of course not!" He loaded my luggage. I walked around the car, only to find it was an Explorer. MUCH bigger than the escape. That wasn't happening either. In the end, they brought me the Elantra. One which hadn't been cleaned, which is a little gross, but it's decent and much easier to park. Speaking of parking, today I had to parallel park twice. The first time took 19 tries and another 15 minutes to even find a spot to park in. The hills of San Fran don't make it any easier. I was terrified to lift my food of the break. I'd lift it and the car would immediately roll, so I'd have to hit the gas quick, but not so hard as to back up into the car behind me. Not an easy task. I had tears in my eyes. I waited around for a person to walk by. I was going to ask him/her to park the car for me. Heck, I'd pay them. But no one came and I just kept on trying. The second time I had to park was easier but the hill was even steeper. Let's see how the rest of the week goes
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