Hotel Delhi: Thursday

Just a quick warning- this is an incredibly boring entry, even to me.  You’d do much better skipping directly to Friday and Saturday….

My husband’s work has taken him to New Delhi, and I was joining him for a week of hotel adventures while he worked entirely too hard.  I had arrived at the hotel Monday and by Thursday was settled into a routine of sleeping late and eating choco flakes for breakfast.

By Thursday, I actually managed to actually make it to the gym.  I lifted free weights for an hour and then ran for twenty minutes.  It felt great, although the trainer who just sits in there and watches you really creeped me out.    At the end, he insisted on showing me the empty aerobics studio, and told me I could there the next day to work out in private.  I couldn’t tell, from his tone of voice, whether he was telling me to be nice, or telling me discreetly to get away from all-male gym facilities. 

I had timed my workout such that I wouldn’t have to be in the room until after it was cleaned; I arrived in my room a bit after two.  I was confident it would be clean and full of fresh bottles of water.  Not clean.  I was so annoyed.  The first day housekeeping came around noon.  The next day was around 12:30.  So what happened today?   I pushed the ‘instant service’ button on the phone, and they assured me housekeeping would be up shortly. 

They were, and cleaned, but they left the disgusting coffee/hot water maker mess of wet towels behind.  They are getting lazy, I think.  The coffee maker makes equal parts coffee and mess. It spills so much water from the bottom that I finally took a tray from the kitchen to set it upon so that the mess wouldn’t spread across the entire bedroom floor.

Once the hotel room was clean, I showered and was annoyed during the shower by multiple phone calls from the front desk. The shower is a pain to turn off, so it was a pain to answer the darn gross bathroom phone (I’m assuming it was gross, as it is located IN THE BATHROOM).  Apparently, despite the fact that I twice told my husband’s company that we weren’t checking out until after the weekend, and the fact that I told the same to the front desk, they still had us listed as checking out on Thursday, four days too early. But I stood, dripping water on the floor and toilet (who puts the phone directly over the toilet?), and fought for a Monday checkout and eventually all was okay, except that my poor busy husband had to show his credit card again when he got home.  No wonder they didn’t clean the room earlier….

I next visited the concierge desk.  My husband and I had tried to find a good place to order delivery, but it is very difficult to do in Delhi, because we (1) don’t know all the various neighborhood names and (2) restaurants aren’t very good at putting their menus online here.  So I had fruitlessly searched for a couple of hours before deciding to put the work on the concierge desk. 

I sat patiently, waiting as he called restaurant after restaurant.  Why on earth didn’t he have a stack of delivery menus like any other hotel?  Eventually, he released me, and told me he’d find me when he found some restaurants that actually delivered.   I told him I’d be enjoying the high tea, and to look for me in the hotel restaurant.   I felt a lot better that he couldn’t find any good delivery, either. 

I walked into the restaurant and ordered the high tea (which is only held between four and seven, I was really working hard on timing for this day).   They told me I couldn’t have it, because I was one person and it would be too much food.  Not only am I lonely, because my husband is working too much, but now I can’t even order the food I want?  How silly is that?  I want baby scones and cute mini cakes.  They insisted that I just order a boring, normal piece of cake and tea.  I bet you anything they didn’t have any baby scones and mini cakes prepared.  I grumbled a bit, but I sat and enjoyed my tea and cake while reading.  But it would have been so much more fun if they were mini-cakes.  Everything is better when it is in small pieces!  Eventually the concierge sent me a note with two delivery restaurants on it.  Thank goodness!

After an hour of sipping tea, reading, and slowly nibbling on the cake, I headed back to the room and waited for my husband to come home.  I’m quite good at waiting when I have a good book.  I sat there for five hours.  At the two and a half hour mark turn down service arrived, distracting me with chocolates.  At the four hour mark, I ate the Pringles in a green can and cashews from the mini-fridge.  He finally came home at the five and a half hour mark and we ordered some thai food (thanks concierge guy).  

Despite being incredibly hungry, the food wasn’t that good.  Which means, in fact, that it was terrible, because everyone knows that hunger is the best seasoning.  Anyhow, I ate it slowly and unskillfully with the provided chopsticks, while my husband had to wait over 15 minutes for a darn fork to arrive from the kitchen.   They also brought him some hot chocolate (his throat is getting bad) and I insisted that he swallow a few spoonfuls of honey to help his throat.

Once again we crawled into bed with full bellies, which causes nothing but indigestion.  It wasn’t the best of nights.  Around 1:00 am, for who knows what reason, some hammering and construction started, in what sure sounded like the room above us.   My husband felt sick, and was up and out of bed all night.  Needless to say, I woke up the next day as a zombie.   And my poor husband must have been worse, and he had to actually work for the day!