(Originally written on June 12th.)
If you don’t know what Claridge’s is, that’s cool—I didn’t either a few weeks ago. But turns out it’s a super fancy hotel in London. When one of my mom’s friends had a conference coming, she invited me to stay with her. I said yes, but I didn’t know what I was getting into!
A man in a top hat and uniform stepped up to the cab to let us out. A bellhop took our luggage. We pushed through the spinny door (love me some spinny doors) and entered a huge, gorgeous room filled with light and marble and the gentle clinking of expensive wine glasses. Even the air seemed to carry invisible money signs.
As we walked to the desk, the lady there greeted us with, “Good day, Ms. Miller. So happy to have you back.” She had an earpiece in, so the bellhop must have told her who we were, but still. Such class.
We were toured around the hotel, including the dark bar that I think looks like a speakeasy and the oldest elevator in the UK. Our room itself was gorgeous. Our slippers were set out, and chocolates with golden hotel logos had been set on the nightstand. The lady who’d brought us in went to go fetch some tea, and next thing I new there were pots of looseleaf tea (and wine and champagne) rolled in on a fancy table.
For a postgraduate student whose dad always frowned at any unnecessary expense, this is like being in a temporary fairytale. It’s like one of those stories where you’re mistaken for someone and you get to live a glamorous existence for a few days.
I’ve been pretending to be posh whenever I’m in public, all the while stuffing my backpack full of soap and stationary. Did I mention the soap yet? Because it’s amazing.
Yesterday Lexie brought back chocolates from her meeting. I don’t normally like chocolate, but these had gold on them so I felt obligated to give it a taste. You know, for future games of Two Truths and a Lie.
I dropped some trash when I got out of cab today and one of the guys in the top hat tried to pick it up for me.
We had an extra room last night, so I grabbed Lindsay from my course and made her come experience it with me. The whole time we were basically marveling and laughing over the prices.
Soon I’ll go back to my house where the walls are paper thin and I have to make my own food and stuff. But tonight I’m going to a fancy dinner in a dress, and I will probably drop my fork or spill my drink, and everyone will discover I’m actually not posh, but I can still pretend.
(Spoiler: I survived the dinner with my dignity sort of intact!)
