I’m spending the week on a business trip to San Jose. The company put me up at the very tony Valencia Hotel which is located in Santana Row. Wikipedia says that “Santana Row was intended to be Northern California’s answer to Rodeo Drive featuring the one of the highest concentration of luxury retailers in the Western United States.” Oh. My. God. I have never seen such conspicuous consumption, especially the cars. The hotel offers valet parking, but in the evenings, they park a few cars in front of the hotel, not in the garage. I’m not sure what it takes to get your car parked conspicuously on Santana Row, but tonight there was a blinged-out Rolls Royce and several other extremely expensive cars in the hotel’s valet spaces. It’s obscene, really.
UPDATE: A fellow hotel guest told me this morning that one of the other cars in front of the hotel last night was a sports car (I don’t remember which brand) that sells for $1.2MM.

Categories: Personal