Me? A Dallas snob?!

I spend my days enjoying gourmet catered lunches, organically stocked kitchens with anything I could possibly want, conference room tables inlaid with copper flecks that glint in the sunlight from a wall of nearly floor to ceiling picture windows, mosaic marble floors, and mahogany office furniture.

Can you say "Jenna is really spoiled"?

I was sent to an Excel seminar on Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week.  Fortunately I learned a lot (yay!).  Unfortunately I got lost really bad.  But I digress.

The seminar was at The Sterling Hotel on Regal Row.  For those of you who don't know much about Dallas, Regal Row is in a fairly shabby, industrial neighborhood.  There's really nothing wrong with industrial neighborhoods, or shabby ones.  I'm just not used to them.

I was in for a wake up call when I walked into The Sterling Hotel (which is really more tarnished than gleaming sterling silver).  It was dark, dingy, and the carpet was bunching up in the highly trafficked areas.

After checking in, getting my conference materials and making a slight perusal of the hotel's amenities, I determined I needed to find a Starbucks.  (Food at a seminar is reimbursable...)

"Is there a Starbucks around here?"  I asked the front desk.

They pointed to a little bar in the worn, lumpy carpeted lounge area.  The sign read "Proudly Serving Starbucks Coffee."

"No, I mean a real Starbucks."  I said, feeling like an absolute snob.

The girls at the desk didn't have a clue what I was asking, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I thought I'd seen a Starbucks kiosk a few miles back on the freeway, so I was going to go find it.

The seminars were held in shabby ballrooms with faux parquet floors, dusty pink partitions, and dirty chandeliers.  Quarters were tight and smelly.

For lunch I decided to try a sandwich place nearby.  It was called Soup and Sandwich No 2 and I thought that it sounded all cute and trendy.

I was mistaken.

After ordering my food (the kitchen looked like the one from East Iowa Bible Camp, only dirty) I decided to go to the bathroom and wash up.  The toilet hadn't been recently cleaned, if ever in the past year, and there was a dead cricket in the corner of the grimy floor.  Around each baseboard for several inches was a thick layer of dust. Oh, and the walls were stained.

Not knowing what else to do, I decided to suck it up and finish my lunch.

The entire two days was like that.  I'm not sure if it was really all that bad, or if I'm just used to my ivory palace.  I have a feeling it's more the latter than the former.

I don't want to be a Dallas snob!