The W Hotel... or my favorite hotel ever.

Okay, so the train trip ended with two obnoxious little children (okay, really they were close to my age, but acting like children) getting on the train in Fargo, ND mostly drunk already, continuing to drink and talking loudly enough to manage to keep me awake from 2:30am until they finally decided to shut up at 6:00am. I know that's a terrible run on sentence, but they just were terrible run on North Dakotans. Seriously, every sentence out of their mouths made me desperate for Sarah sitting next to me to make snarky comments about them. They were terrible.

But, I managed to get off the train in Chicago without throwing either one of them out a window. Minnesota is a lovely state, as is Wisconsin, but there's not much really spectacular to talk about. I met some nice people, including a nice Amish or Mennonite couple from Hanover, PA. I didn't get a chance to ask them what religion or group they exactly were from, but they did say that they drove part of the way on their vacation, so obviously they are not strict Amish who can't drive cars. They were reading a book called "House Calls and Hitching Posts: Stories from Dr. Elton Lehman's Career Among the Amish". It looks like a very interesting book. It must be interesting to read someone else's perspective of your own culture.

Once I got to Chicago, I had decided to stay at a real hotel, since I had not slept much the night before and had managed to stay in coach the whole time on this train trip. Well, I had found the Holiday Inn on the internet, very close to Union Station and reasonably priced. Well, obviously from the title of this post I didn't end up there. The woman at the front desk was exceedingly rude and basically treated me with total disrespect and acted as if there was no possible way I could afford a room at their hotel. So, I grabbed a map that showed other hotels in the area and I walked out. The next closest hotel to the station was the W Hotel on Adams Street. I have always heard good things about the W Hotels, so I headed there. The woman at the front desk here at the W was very polite. She made no assumptions about my ability to pay for anything and politely quoted me a price for a room. My heart jumped out of my body for a moment, but I totally kept my cool and handed over my credit card. You really should splurge on yourself every once in a while. As she was putting all my information into the system I told her it was my first time at a W and that I'd heard good things about it and I told her how rude the Holiday Inn desk attendant had been. She put me in the nicest room she could find for what I was paying and reminded me that W Hotels have the Heavenly Bed. Then she sent me up to my room.

After a really wonderful bath I crashed briefly on the bed. Let me tell you, it really is quite heavenly. They aren't kidding. If I have the money some day I may invest in one of these. It's a beautiful thing. So I'm sitting in my room, talking to Sarah on the phone when there's a knock at the door. I'm very confused and remain on the phone with Sarah as I answer the door. It's a room service guy with a tray for me and a card. I'm VERY perplexed at this point. I'm trying to describe the scene to Sarah. The room service guy opens my bottle of wine and then leaves, with me feeling completely awful that I had no cash to tip him. I am seriously completely out of cash at the moment, I desperately need to hit the ATM at Union Station tomorrow before heading out. Anyway, the tray was a half bottle of Fetzer Merlot and a plate of cheese, crackers and fresh fruit. The card said, "To our favorite 'crazy backpacker'; We think you're classy. :) Have a safe trip and let us know if we can do anything else for you! Sincerely, Katrina at the Welcome Desk". HOW FREAKIN AWESOME IS THAT?!?!!!!!

Katrina at the W Hotel in Chicago is my current favorite person. She is awesome. I went downstairs to head out to dinner and thanked her a billion times over. She rocks. And cheese and crackers and fresh fruit are a very tasty combo. They will make a very nice snack as I watch my complimentarily borrowed copy of Jerry McGuire. Yes, I'm a dork, but I've never seen it before, at least not in it's entirety. So, that's what I'm going to go do now, lay in my Heavenly Bed, eat my cheese and crackers and drink my wine. Oh, what a terrible life I lead, I know.