Ok, so this is creepy. I was rooting through my backpack trying to find my glasses when a heavy metal song with vaguely menacing lyrics began playing somewhere in our hotel room. Upon inspection we discovered it was coming from my ipad, which was lying on the bed, untouched. I picked it up and there was no clue of where the music was coming from. It blared on as I closed every single open application. I turned off the iPad and continued my glasses search. When I eventually returned to the bed, the iPad was on again and nothing would open. Mary says maybe it’s Putin?

Anyway, I turned it off and back on and now it seems to be behaving itself. We are lounging in our room on the 5th floor of the Hyatt Place. Until about noon we were on the 4th flloor, but unfortunately for Mary I did what she calls her “cross to bear.” The room we slept in last night had a really great view of swaying palm tress, which we both loved. I was able to pretend we were already in Tahiti. But soon we discovered that the walls and ceilings here are paper-thin and there was what seemed to be constant stomping up above us, which was driving me insane. I’m trying to be zen on this trip and thought I could bear the stomping, but when I bolted awake this morning the moment the person above us started walking around, I went downstairs and asked them if we could have a room on the 5th floor. Poor Mary was still asleep and had no idea what was about to befall her.

I always tell her – because this is not an uncommon occurence – “I’ll do everything. You won’t have to do a thing.” And I always keep that promise, packing everything up, getting it on the luggage cart, and pulling/pushing the luggage cart through the hallways. But after I crashed the cart iinto a wall and a suitcase and a backpack fell off, Mary let me continue until the elevator, at which point she sighed, “Just give that to me. Here, pull this,” (the aforementioned fallen backpack) and she maneuvered the rest of the way to our new room, which has a view of a parking tower and an office building but, at least so far, is much quieter.

Our flight here yesterday was uneventful with the usual annoyances – a woman‘s bare feet practically in Mary’s face, a woman putting on nail polish – it does astound me how clueless some people are; I could smell the fumes through my mask. We waited quite a while for the shuttle to the hotel but it was nice to be in mostly fresh air. There is a tiny little bar at the Hyatt Place with a very limited food menu. I asked about happy hour and there was indeed a happy hour with $9 cocktails down from $11, so once we got settled in our room, we went back down. There were two women at the bar being served very interesting looking drinks. I asked what they were and opted for the guava lemon drop wich was quite wonderful. We shared a hamburger and fries – a really good hamburger – and then about 9:30 Mary started feeling snacky so we ordered some groceries from DoorDash.

The free breakfast this morning was also pretty good. I had a lot of free breakfast: scrambled eggs, tater tots, turkey sausage, oatmeal with granola and coconut, and a pancake. I brought a bagel and cream cheese and some mixed fruit back to the room and that, along with a carrot, Greek yogurt, and rosemary crackers from the groceries last night made a tasty little lunch.

Whenever we travel I bring along a travel router and a Fire stick. I’m always very happy when I can get those things to work. Then we have our own private network (although I suppose it’s not all that private if Putin can send heavy metal threats to my iPad) and we can watch all our streaming services from the tv just like we’re at home. Cuz isn’t that the point of travel, to get everything set up exactly like it is when you’re at home? I’m being sarcastic, but I’ll admit that there are certain things I love so much about my daily routine that I want them wherever I go: one is my plain Greek yogurt with fruit for breakfast and the other is the ability to watch my Seattle Storm games. It is always a struggle to get my gadgets to interact with the hotel wireless and tv, and it was a struggle both yesterday and then today when we moved rooms, but I’ve got them working and we are happy campers.

Shortly we will venture out for some fresh air and see if we can find something to eat or maybe we’ll just repeat our burger repast from last night. That was a really good burger!