reflections on the hotel

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This hotel is extremely convenient to the convention center. Very close, and it's connected by gerbil tube, making coats (umbrellas, etc) unnecessary. That is a Good Thing. Just carrying one's ownself around all day is a gracious plenty. Carrying anything extra is good to avoid. (Especially if one expects to shop the way an awful lot of the show-goers were shopping!)

The hotel has interesting architecture, and many photo opportunities.

However.

This would be what I call "a nice hotel with no amenities." At the top of my list of annoyances is pay-per-day internet. Rip-off, rip-off, rip-off. Grrrrrr.

I mean, I get that most of the people who come here are on their company's nickel, so why do they care what it costs? But for those of us who are on our own nickel, well, paying for internet service is something that is always going to leave a bad taste in my mouth. Humph. This particular example of Hotelus non-Interneticus doesn't even have it in the lobby (unlike the Waldorf Astoria). Double humph.

Then of course no fridge (only mini-bar), and no microwave.

Every chain hotel in every little town in these United States has the above three amenities, but fancy hotels in big cities (or along coastlines) do not.

How can one feel anything but gouged?

Feh.


Ok.

Cleansing breath.

Let's admire what's admirable..............

The hotel has rectangles, but also lots of cylinders. I don't remember it being pink, from last year, so I wonder if green windows were replaced with pink ones since then?

I think pink is nice with maple-tree flowers........





Lots of excellent skies on this trip.







At the bottom right you see the gerbil tube, wending its way around to the hotel. (This pic taken from another section of the tube.)





Gerbil tube, reflected in cylinder.

We don't know what was in those cylinders. We could see lamps inside. The cylinders weren't *that* big around. Any rooms in there were going to be seriously pie-shaped.... Inquiring minds want a tour...........





More reflections in the sides of cylinders. Aren't these quilterly? Just right for that architecture challenge!







Our room was in the Executive Wing. Through another tube to an area in front of the elevators ... this area was roofed in plexiglas. These pics were taken on a very wet day. It was pouring right down.





Looking up through the wet plexi.







Looking out through the wet plexi wall. Lights inside where I was, reflected in the plexi.





One place on the roof/ceiling didn't drain properly. What does it look like through the pool? Ooooh. Blurry, then all shuffled by the water drops..... Yet another view of one of the cylinders.





The Excutive Wing was V-shaped. Looking out our window at the other half of the V.

People may say that glass-front buildings are faceless and monolithic. Perhaps they haven't a face of their own, but they borrow shamelessly from everything around them, rendering it all back transformed.......





The lobby of the hotel is open to the roof.





Rooms in the main part of the hotel are off philodendron-garnished balconies.







The restaurant in the lobby is actually an amenity. The salad bar is very nice. Varied, fresh, interesting. Reasonably priced. If you get one of the "booths", it is quiet, too. Friendly and attentive staff. Recommended.

There are two large silver "trees" with these globular "fruits" in the restaurant.





In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these Chicago quilt show posts, a link to the next one is here.

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