Back from Charlotte where I stayed in a Courtyard that was like every other Courtyard in the country.

The Good: Clean. Free Internet. Quiet. When the first room I was assigned had a non-functioning air conditioner that had turned the room into a sauna (despite outdoor temps in the 40s), the woman at the front desk immediately gave me a new room and brought the key up to the room. Separate shower and dressing areas (which means I can close the door when in the shower so it gets nice and steamy, but don't fog up the mirror). Very close to the university I was visiting. Fluffy pillows. No creepy pictures on the wall. No funky smell.

The Bad: Sticky shower curtain. Dearth of towels. No body lotion (I keep forgetting to put some in my travel bag, and seriously considered slathering my hands with hair conditioner this morning to prevent snags as a I put on my pantyhose). Heater/air conditioner that blew directly on the desk chair.

The Ugly: The furnishings were plain, but not especially ugly.

Many hotels have little signs near the sprinkler heads showing graphically that you may not hang anything from the sprinklers. Do people really do that? The sprinklers are usually located either in the ceiling or at the top of the wall, making them absurdly unusable as hangers. Then again, I'm sure there's some Darwin Award that explains why those signs exist.