Fun fact about me that you may not have already known: I have an older brother. Three years older, who is graduating from Virginia Tech this week (side note: they have two graduations, so the hunt for not just one, but two appropriate dresses was a struggle). I could have written an article about the 15-hour drive I went on with my mum (since we’re from Maine). I was going to, actually, and it was going to be about what car games actually work to pass the time. But we ended up not needing any games—not even the license plate game—because I brought some books to read to her and she ended up falling in love with "Me Before You" (yes, that’s a recommendation, and the movie comes out June 3, so read it fast). When I say she fell in love with it, I don’t mean slowly like Will and Lou (if you haven’t read it, they’re characters from the book). From the prologue, she was hooked. It was great to have an audience who laughed at the author’s one-liners, and I got to practice my British accent (if you read my last article, you’ll know I can do a banging British accent).
We haven’t finished it yet since we’ve been crazy busy and always with other people for as long as we’ve been in Virginia, but so far, every night, no matter how tired she is, she’ll read the next chapter before bed. And it’s adorable to see her with one lamp on in the far corner, away from my already-sound-asleep dad and trying-to-sleep me, completely absorbed in the book like I imagine I am when I read (except in my case, it’s probably not adorable, just nerdy). She brings it in her little backpack to every event on the off-chance there’s a spare moment she can sneak in a few words. (And this is important to me because my mum is so busy, all the time, that she rarely reads. I, a person who reads a lot, am always telling her about my latest novel or non-fiction, which is fun because I get excited to tell her about them, but we’ve never really had an in-depth conversation about the symbolism and potential real-life takeaways from a book before. It’s amazing.)
But that’s not what this article is about. This article is about hotels. Specifically, the one my family and I stayed at in Roanoke, Virginia.
My family doesn’t travel very much. We always had a family camp on a lake, and that’s our vacation (now my parents live there full-time, which is fantastic, so it’s like a permanent vacation for them). So we haven’t stayed in very many hotels. Especially not together—my dad goes on business trips sometimes, I went to Washington D.C. in the eighth grade, but that’s about it—so it was a new experience to sleep in the same room as my parents. These are the thoughts of someone who isn’t used to having your room cleaned by housekeepers or having a queen-sized bed all to herself.
Before I even get to the room:
1. If you read my article, “How I Stay Happy”, I mentioned that I always say "hi" to people when I walk by them. If not by actually saying, “Hi, how are you?” than by smiling in acknowledgement of passing another human. Well, on the walk into the hotel from the parking lot, I smiled at a guy who was leaving, and he was pretty absorbed with his phone, so I wasn’t expecting anything. Would you believe it, this guy looked up from his phone to say, “Hi, how are ya?” I was blown away.
2. Just before entering, a bellhop came up to my mum and me and asked if he could take our bags. Since we only had a duffle each, we decided he would be of better service to someone else. Before he walked away, he said, “Well, my name is Xavier and y’all just let me know if you need anything,” but to really understand what I heard, I’ll write it this way: “Well, my name is Ex-avier, and if y’all just let me know if ya need anything.” He reminded me so much of Ray from “The Princess and the Frog." He was adorable.
3. Because we have a room on the seventh floor (geez, right?), we had to use the elevator. I’m not usually a fan of elevators (I’m a little bit afraid of them) but this one is amazing. It’s an old-wood frame—rich, dark wood—encased in mirrors. Very handy for when you’re leaving and want to check on your makeup one last time. Also less claustrophobic.
4. Why can’t we just use old-fashioned keys? This card business is too complicated for my backwoods Southern Maine tastes.
Once in the room:
5. I guess I can get a little over-excited, as I opened the door and it crashed into the wall. Oopsies. This is why I can’t have nice things.
6. A television! I haven’t watched TV in such a long time… I probably won’t have time to here, but at least there’s a possibility. Baby steps.
7. Ooooh, my parents get a big, fluffy, queen-sized bed. Very comfortable.
8. There’s another big bed.
9. Wait, I get my own bed?
10. I mean, I don’t make a habit of sharing beds with my parents, but, like, I get my own big bed?
11. The last time we stayed in a hotel (my brother’s freshman year of college when we stopped in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on the way home), there was a mix-up, so we only had one king-sized bed in our room, and the hotel’s fix was to give me a cot.
12. As beautiful as this big, fluffy, white, four-pillowed bed is, my bags are heavy. *Ker-plop* Bye-bye, smoothly made bed.
13. I'm very glad to not be Jennifer Lawrence right now (the only time I'll ever say that) because I can just imagine the horror of seeing butt plugs lined up on the bedside table. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here to be enlightened on the joke.
14. WE HAVE A BALCONY? Oh, I get it, it’s two feet out and five feet across with a five foot wall to keep us from falling off the seventh floor. At least we can see the Roanoke star.
15. I’m so tired, but after starting the day in 40-degree weather and ending in 70, I’m hot, I’m sweaty and I’m hangry. Yep, I said it. Priorities: food and a shower.
16. The hotel restaurant is basically a shrine to Don Shula (according to my dad, a former coach of the Miami Dolphins). There are photos, footballs, trophies, jerseys, Don Shula hot sauce and mustard—you name it. I’m not a football person, but I do appreciate how the hotel is basically his fangirl.
17. Even though I’m essentially falling-down-tired at this point, I can still enjoy a good burger. And, boy, did I. The tomato, and the lettuce, and the cheese, and the burger, and the fries. But I’m still falling asleep.
18. Back in the room, the bathroom is pretty small (but still very nice), and I was very concerned that the door wouldn’t clear the end of the toilet. It was a fear of engineering that it did.
19. I’m about to take the best shower of my life, and I’m so excited to be able to enjoy it.
*Side note: The garage at my house is being rebuilt, since it’s been there since the 1970s, and while the workers were digging, they nicked our septic system. Now, my parents were intending on replacing it during this project, just not at this point, so it’s not going to fixed for another couple of weeks. Until then, we need to take very short showers, go to the laundromat and obey the middle school water conservation mantra: if it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.*
20. Something I learned about my dad in this experience: he snores. It’s not awful, but enough to be annoying when you’re trying to fall asleep in the same room. It’s also intermittent, so he’ll snore for a while, and then just as I’m getting used to it and starting to drift off, he’ll stop. And then I’ll notice the lack of background noise and think, okay, he’s stopped snoring, now I can really fall asleep. About 15 minutes later, just as I’m falling asleep, aaaaaug, aaaaug, AAAAAAUG, and I’m awake again.
21. The air conditioning. Dear lord, the air conditioning. It’s off and everything’s fine, and then suddenly, it jackhammers to life for 15 minutes. You honestly have to talk over it to be heard. It’s crazy. Once I fell asleep, I stayed asleep, but drifting off was a challenge. But I did.
22. And I could’ve stayed in that bed forever, it was so nice. I had my cocoon, both my parents were asleep and quiet, and everything was peaceful. But no. We had to drive 40 minutes to Blacksburg (where Tech is), and spend the day with my brother. A different kind of nice.
