We stayed at the Gaslamp Plaza Suites, by far the nicest hotel of the trip (Mark's work paid), and we had a whole suite to ourselves! Mark dropped me off and had to rush to his first seminar before even getting a good look at our suite. I took the liberty of taking pictures of everything for him (in case he got bored in his meetings).
The Gaslamp used to be an old office building from the 40's! Staying there felt like staying back in time. There were random doors all over the place that were sealed and didn't lead anywhere but had letter slots! There was even one in our suite...
Our suite felt bigger than our apartment, haha. We had a sitting room and two bathrooms!
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| Entrance to the sitting room |
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| Entrance to the bedroom |
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| Yes we used both beds, one for sleeping & one for watching TV |
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| Bathroom #1 |
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| Bathroom #2...yes we used both bathrooms! |
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| Our sitting room :) I worked in here while Mark attended meetings |
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| I took breaks to people watch from our window |
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| The view |
Our hotel could not have been in a more prime location. We walked out straight into the middle of the bustling chaos with taxi drivers, tour guides on bicycles, crazy people yelling in the street, and tons of restaurants everywhere you looked. After walking around for half an hour, we started to get scared of some of the crazy people on the street...this one guy was sprinting down a block shouting obscenities at an invisible perpetrator! People were darting out of his way and quickly crossing the street. So after that we ducked into Buca di Beppo.
I had actually never been there. I guess they make their portions big enough for 2 (but let's be honest, so does every other restaurant except they just don't advertise it!). That worked out perfectly because we could write the dinner off as a work expense, since it looked like just one meal. We ordered a sampler platter because I can never make up my mind, along with garlic bread!
I am always very aware of my surroundings so I quickly noticed there was something off about the couple in the booth behind us. They were a little too loud and had clearly had too much to drink. The sweet waitress came by and asked them how everything was and they mumbled "Good," but as she walked away the guy muttered, "Except the sauce was too f***ing sweet" and they started complaining to each other loudly about the meal, as though they wanted her to hear. How annoying!!
Then when she came back to give them the check, the guy told her they didn't like their meal and wanted to send it back, except they had clearly already eaten half of it! She asked what was wrong with it and they told her it just tasted 'off' and was 'too sweet', to which she replied, "It's Chicken Marsala. It's supposed to be sweet." They told her she should have the chef taste it so she picked it up and then asked if they would like anything else. They ordered Chicken Parmigiana. As she left, I felt so sorry for her. How annoying being a waiter must be, having to be polite to rude, irritating people all day long and getting paid so little.
So for Christmas, Mark's dad gave everyone a $100 bill and told them to give it to someone in need or to spend it on a service or act of kindness for someone. Mark and I have been debating since Christmas about what to do with our bills. But suddenly I knew what I wanted to do.
We left our sweet waitress, Erica, who was constantly smiling and apologizing to us about how busy it was and not letting the other couple affect her mood, a $100 tip for our $35 meal. We never got to see her face but I know we must have made her night. ;)
Oh and to top it off! We got a free postcard with our picture on it!
When we got back to the hotel, we headed to the roof to check out the view. Pretty spectacular...it was so peaceful up there.
Then we watched some TV, had fun using both our beds ;) and called it a night! Pretty great day.
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