the next day we slept in, packed up, and left for another city for the music festival. i had booked the hotel as part of a special deal for ticket holders. the rooms we were in were normally over $300 a night, but i was paying $139. we were on their special "club floor" with the pass key to get to that floor and all. not as special as you might think. bath sheets instead of bath towels, and an extra basket of shit they try to sell you. free continental breakfast, and free hors d'ouvres - but an extra $150 a night? get real.
i inquired as to how we ended up on the club floor when other ticket holders didn't and the front desk told me that i/we probably met the demographic profile to make the special offer to. having been previous guests, age and occupation, and having left customer comments, and having participated in the guest post stay surveys would have all counted toward the special offer in the computer system - a "regular customer" who wouldn't likely disrupt the "club floor" and their exclusive guests... we did get the smallest room on the floor, but that was ok.
we were attending the music festival. it was in the back of the hotel - the hotel and its gardens are part of a larger park. on the Saturday we saw 5 bands including Buddy Guy (described below). It was a lot of fun. we ate the free food while the concert was on and then went out later - went to a really great asian restaurant i knew. i really love how Smitten likes the same kind of food i do. or rather, eats the same way i do. i still like beef and pig and things and she's not so swell there - i just don't eat it much anymore. we are equally wowed - she is amazed that there is a guy out there that would eat the way she does instead of solid pizza hut and steak (remember - her ex-husband wouldn't eat food that was mixed together - as in even a casserole - or mixed vegetables [when he would eat vegetables]). no really... lasagna was outside his desires.
on the sunday we watched another 6 bands for Canada Day and wandered about the park looking at the booths. i bought some interesting Sri Lankan batiks. i will post pictures once they are framed (or maybe sooner if it takes awhile). Smitten was broke, so I was covering most of the weekend - got her a belt and some funky earings. it was all quite reasonably priced (cheap).
we hit a fabulous Japanese restaurant that night. it was teppanyaki style so they came out and did all the chopping and cooking right in front of us - complete with flaming food and the whole bit. that was a lot of fun. it was my first time doing teppanyaki - Smitten had before. we were seated with some people we didn't know, but soon enough engaged in conversation. the lady was a professor who was moving from the atlantic coast to our region - a professor of art history.
it was a fun conversation. i was very pleased that Smitten was both completely up for engaging in conversation with strangers and enjoyed it during and after (yes - bitter historical reference(s)).
on the way back i stopped at a lake that has a particularly large marina with a lot of sailboats and we clambered about on the docks talking about sailing and such.
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the thing that was/is interesting about these events is the absolute lack of tension involved.
i cannot underline too strongly the weird feeling i had through all of it that there was something missing and that it was pre-naturally calm - almost surreal.
it really was like a dream. you know when you have a happy dream - but something seems missing?
that was this whole weekend. the thing that was missing was the need for hyper-vigilance and the fear of making a mistake - oh, and the constant criticism and second guessing.
yeah - surreal.
1 comment:
*sigh* I need a long vacation like that. Sounds like fun!
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