Ultimate Blog Challenge - Four Points



Welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Challenge - today we're supposed to about any kind of four things, like the elements, the seasons, etc.

"Hi, welcome to Four Points, how can I help you?" I was greeted by the receptionist.

Hello, my friend (insert name) has a reservation for the two of us.

"Can I see some credit card and picture ID, please?"

Upon typing my name he frowned.

"I'm afraid you're not included in the reservation."

That's probably because his assistant made the reservation. I arrived early, I'm in desperate need of a nice shower as you can see.

What followed was a lengthy discussion. Bottom line, they did not give me the key.

I could not reach my friend because he was in the plane, flying in from the East Coast.

Do you have a business center, if I had access to my e-mail I could show you the booking confirmation that was forwarded to me. That would kind of confirm that I'm good, right?

"I'm sorry, you need a room key for the business center, it's for guests only."

That's what I am trying to become, for crying out loud - a guest!

I ended up booking my own room, which my friend was going to move into and cancel the original booking as soon as he arrived in the Silicon Valley.

Geez, I understand they can't just let any unknown person into a guest's hotel room, but I felt they were less than helpful. More precisely I felt like Vivian at the Boulmiche Boutique, except I didn't get kicked out.

I don't want this post to be about a bad hotel review though. I googled it, btw, and it looks like it's gone out of business. I might be a tiny bit gleeful about that fact.

In case you don't know, I am originally from Switzerland, but I was living ib San Diego, CA, at the time. My home country's entire area only covers some 40,000 km2 (=16,000 square miles), the state of California alone is ten times larger and is home to 40 million people. Check out this map, it's mind blowing!


Why is this important? 

I'm going to tell you how this trip progressed. We had dinner and enjoyed each other's company. Another friend from Switzerland joined, too. It felt good to have a little reunion.

The next day I thought it was a good idea to have breakfast in San Francisco, where my friend had a business meeting and drive back to San Diego, where I had to be in class at 7pm on the same day. 

So, it took an hour to get from Sunnyvale to Downtown SF.



According to Yahoo Maps (back then Google didn't even exist yet) SF to SD was an 8 hours' trip. 

Or roughly a 500 miles' journey. In Europe it's almost as if I was driving from my town in Switzerland all across Germany to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Nobody, nobody, would be as crazy as to have breakfast in Amsterdam and plan on being back in Zurich by 7pm! 

It all went relatively well until I hit Los Angeles' rush hour. Oh, boy. Did I mention this was in 2001? No navigation system in the car. Just a spiral-bound Rand McNally road atlas.

PS: I was less than half an hour late for class! I apologized to the teacher and told her I came directly from San Francisco.

"Was your plane delayed?" she asked.

Nope.

"Did you miss your flight altogether?"

Nope. I drove.

"What do you mean, you drove? You drove??? All the way down? Why would you do such a thing?

Because I was naive. If it's within the same state, it can't be that far. 



Have you had any comparable travel fails yourself? Let me know.



Comments

  1. I very rarely read personal blogs but this was a very interesting post

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  2. I’m sure I’ve had some doozies. Like the time I hopped onto a bus heading INTO Columbia, not out. Could not speak much Spanish, and seriously scared my parents when they learned their college girl was bumping along in a van in the interior of Columbia with no passport, alone. They say God looks out for fools and children. I was no child, so you can figure out what I was in that instance. God did look out for me, and all’s well that ends well!

    Blessings,
    Laurie
    Ridge Haven Homestead

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  3. You drove from SD to SF and made it within a half an hour of class. That's amazing and probably unheard of today with the traffic. And now you have a great story to tell.

    I once had a connecting flight from somewhere on the west coast to Philadelphia and connected through Chicago. The Bulls (basketball team) had just won the championships but I didn't care because a) I'm not from Chicago and b) I almost missed my connecting flight because of all the screaming fans. Luckily I made it - there's no place like home. :) Great post!

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  4. Amazing that you were only half an hour late for class! I did that drive partway up, 6 hours each way, to Santa Maria and back to SD in 2010. The beautiful scenery makes it worthwhile. ♥

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  5. That's a long way to go for breakfast, Tamara! Our cities are hours to get to. Calgary is in the next province, Alberta, but it's still closer - only 6-7 hours away. I wouldn't think of going for there for just breakfast. 😃 But good for you. You made good time.

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