One of the things we learned very early in our travels with E was that luxury is meaningless. Our first hotel visit was a night in posh room on the executive floor of Chicago's Palmer House Hilton. My partner had a conference. As we put E to bed at 7 that evening, it dawned upon us that we had nowhere to go and, our child being a light sleeper, we would neither be able to turn on the light nor the television without waking her. My partner went off to a cafe to work on his presentation while I sat in the dark, then moved to the bathroom to read, and then watched television very quietly until it woke E.
Since then we have either stayed with friends or rented suites. Here in Montreal we find ourselves in a fully-equipped 1 bedroom apartment in Hotel La Tour Centreville. The hotel is in a fabulous location just 2 blocks from the IGA (also something that counts for a great deal when traveling with a child ) and just 2 blocks from the conference site. It's nothing fancy. The appliance in the kitchen are old - that mustard color that they stopped making years ago. There are about 10 too many layers of paint on evertyhing and the color scheme leaves much to be desired. However, E can scoot around to her heart's content and she can spill her food without me feeling like we are trashing the place. (Maybe someday I will tell you the story of the blueberries and the 4-star hotel carpet but I am being upbeat today. Take my word for it, though, blueberries are best eaten at home.)
To top it all off, we have the unexpected perk of inexpensive wireless internet and a chinese restaurant in the lobby.
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