Dreamlife April 2 - Robin

Type: Travel, stress
People: Leslie (she seems to always be in my dreams!)
Featuring: An Indian motel in Hollywood and piano competition/ sleep-worry stress

Leslie and I were in LA for the piano competition as I was going to play in the next day. I forgot to get reservations at a hotel, so I called a couple of good places I knew about.  They laughed at me for trying to get a hotel room at the last minute.  So Leslie and I got into the car and drove into Hollywood where we figured we could easily find a motel room.  At this point, it was midnight.  I had to get up at 5 a.m.  I was stressing about the fact I wasn't going to get a lot of sleep before my big day.

We drove past several "No Vacancy" signs on motels and finally found one that said "Welcome".  We figured it might be bad, but stopped and went in.  As we opened the door, three dogs ran out and a woman gave chase.  We apologized for letting the dogs out. The room was huge and a large Indian family was there with 48 dogs.  A older woman in a sari checked us in.  It cost $87.50/night, which seemed like a lot for what would be about 4 hours of sleep.  A male member of the family gave us a huge set of keys to get in and out of various doors, including their restaurant.

The woman who chased the dogs brought them all back on a extra-wide push cart that they were tied to.  It was an odd way to bring in dogs, I thought.  I really wanted to get to sleep because the piano competition was going to be really tough.

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Annotation

Piano competition.  Well, I can't play chopsticks, but I was very fond of the movie, The Competition. As well, I really enjoyed a documentary I streamed last year on Netflix about an amateur piano competition.

Motels are often owned by Indian families (43% of all American hotels and motels are owned by Indian-American families...just googled an article), so that wasn't surprising.  But the 48 dogs is not a norm.  That said, we are in the land of lots of mushing dog kennels (one is on a walk we take) and we are rather dog-focused, so that can account for it.

Hollywood is very sleazy, so it is accurate that one would be able to find a motel with a room there.  The fact was, I was happy with the motel I found in my dream even if it was expensive.  Much better than I feared.  I wished—in my dream—that I didn't have to leave so early in the morning because it would be nice to eat at their restaurant.

I'm a planner, so the fact that I didn't make a reservation and it came back to bite me reinforces the need to reserve in advance!