magid

Last Thursday night I flew to Washington. My cousin was getting married on Sunday, and family was gathering in advance. We stayed at the Hotel Lombardy, which is an historic hotel that used to be an apartment building, which was rather interesting.

Walking in, there's a little area with four chairs. Unfortunately, that's it as far as a lobby goes, so there wasn't any place useful to congregate in. I kept wondering whether there would've been more larger-group activities if people could've found each other [there were at least 50 people at the hotel in for the wedding]. From there, it's good that there's a sign pointing to the reception area, otherwise it would be completely unfindable, hidden off to the left.

The rest of the ground level had a tiny cafe and a couple of function rooms, one of which had a bar, and was decorated in Morroccan style. I kept meaning to go back and take pictures, but that never seemed to happen. There were also a row of mailboxes, leftover from the apartment days.

Technically, there seemed to be two elevators, but I only ever saw one of them in use. It reminded me of the elvators in the building on Mass Ave I used to live in, with outside doors and mesh inside doors that have to be opened and closed by the elevator operator. Yes, no guests got to push buttons in this elevator. It never seemed to stop exactly at the floor, either. And it was slow, multiplied by the elevator operator helping guests to their rooms as well. As at cons, I relied on the stairs, since it was so much faster.

My 'room' was an apartment, almost as big as my place at home (though with considerable wasted space in an over-wide hallway (which would still be too wide even after bookcases on either side)). I had a galley kitchen, dining area, living room (with a fold-out couch), bedroom (king-sized bed), and oldish bathroom. Later on, I found out that my room was unimproved, since it lacked window treatments, a more modern bathroom, and and extra TV with a cabinet. I was pleased with my room, though, since no one else had a full-sized fridge; there was plenty of room for all the food I'd schlepped. Plus I had the luxury of having it to myself, which felt even more decadent as I realized how many people were sharing spaces.

The windows open, which was excellent, because the heat was on and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off, and I didn't want to use the air conditioner (I don't care for the noise they make in general, but part of it was just not wanting to use an AC in March. March!). There wasn't a thermostat or anything obvious. On the second day, I asked at the front desk, and was told that there was a switch. Which may have been true for the other heaters, but not mine. In the end, they sent an technician, who ended up pulling a wood-and-metal screen off the wall to get to the heater, and turned it off ("Ouch, that's hot!"). Even after the heat was off, it was nice to have the windows open, to get the cool of the night, even though there were unfamiliar sounds outside.

The other time I called for a technician was after someone else confirmed my sense of smell: there was a smell of gas. Someone fixed that while I was out, and that stayed for a couple of days, but by the time I checked out, there was a light smell of gas again. There was no chance I'd've used the oven anyway, but that would've kept me from it in any case.

I also have to mention the welcome basket I was given when we checked in. It wasn't from the hotel, but the people having the wedding, and it was pretty impressive, a basket wrapped in red netting, with a couple of welcoming notes on it. There was food (sparkling water, bottled water, raisins and dried cherries, tea bags, trail mix, cinnamon honey biscuits, and a coffee-cream-filled chocolate bar), and a wonderful city map at the bottom, which was excellent to have. I find it much easier to visit a city after I've had a chance to look at a map, even if I don't use it much when I'm out.

part two