Advantage Rent-A-Car Sucks Donkey Nuts

Allen and I are in San Francisco now, celebrating my birthday. We had planned on renting a car and driving up, but when we arrived at the Advantage Rent-A-Car agency near LAX, the jackass working the counter informed us that Allen needed proof of insurance and a UTILITY BILL. Now, who the hell carries a utility bill around?! We had made a reservation through Orbitz and there was no note that these items needed to be shown. They were going to charge an additional $35 per day w/o the proof - the car rental itself was only $16/day!! UGH. I was so infuriated I told the guy to go eff his mother and we'd be taking our business elsewhere. Okay, just kidding. I was actually in the car and didn't even talk to the guy at the counter. But I was furious and did insist that we don't patronize their business. I plan on writing to the corporate headquarters upon my return AND filing a complaint with the BBB. Assholes.

The drive up (in my car) was decent. We got lucky and there was no traffic so we arrived in SF around 4.30pm. Unfortunately, the hotel we're staying at doesn't have a parking garage and while I was expecting expensive parking rates in the city, I didn't realize it would cost us nearly $30/day! NUTS! Why would anyone have a car in this city if it costs that much to park it. All the street parking is metered at an astounding rate of $1 for 20 minutes.

The hotel we're staying at is very interesting. All of the rooms, hallways and lobby are painted/decorated by local artists. Our room is okay looking, with some weird jungle bat/monkey things on the wall. I'll try to post pictures later. There's no bathroom in our room, only a sink, and no air conditioning, which is the really sucky part. We have to keep the windows open otherwise the room is stuffy and smells like paint fumes (the rooms are re-painted every three months). Unfortunately, it's VERY LOUD outside our room. First, there's some sort of generator thing below our room, on the roof of an adjacent building. It whirls and hums all day and most of the night. Then there's trash pickup periodically in the alley's surrounding the hotel up until midnight. This morning, there was also some strange noise - it sounded like someone hung a giant wind chime made out of empty soda cans right outside our windows.

However, for $50 a night and free breakfast and wi-fi, we really can't complain.