Some of you have expressed an interest in living vicariously through us by reading these blogs. Well, today's instalment is all about our exciting life in the hostel.
We share a two bunk bed room with two other people, or at least, we used to. That is, until the management at this wonderful placed kicked out our African roommates for one racist reason or another. After the first guy's departure, an older gentleman from Hong Kong moved in. The next night, our other African roommate was kicked out. So now it's just me, Dingman and the guy from Hong Kong. He's a nice enough guy, if you ignore his room-shaking snoring. Some nights it's hard to get any sleep, his snoring is so loud. A couple of nights ago, he was snoring so loudly and with such force that Dingman and I thought he was in pain.
The beds are made of foam with a rubberized cover, so if you're a bed-wetter, this is the place for you. If not, you get the joy of sleeping on an uncomfortable mattress with no lumbar support. The floors are made to look like hardwood, but really, they're rubber. We learned this on the day we dropped our mobile off the top bunk -- and it bounced.
Our room is right beside the bathroom and the hall door. That means that we¡¦re kept awake all night long as the drunken backpackers return at all hours of the night. The hall door doesn¡¦t stop slamming until 5 am. And the puking in the bathroom seems to be non-stop. Still, there¡¦s an eerie silence at 5 am. That¡¦s when everyone is sleeping, or quietly rifling through their neighbour's things, or jacking off in the darkness. The first night I was here, I was woken up to the sound of one of our roommates grunting and groaning as he was choking his chicken. Pretty gross. And to make things even worse, I was on the bunk above him, so I got to experience the bed shaking in sync with his movements. And of course, my red-haired knight in shining armour slept through the whole thing. It was pretty hard to fall back asleep after that, as I kept thinking this roommate might try something funny. I was after all, the only girl in the room. But then common sense kicked in, and I realized he was probably done for the night. Eventually I drifted off.
The next day we decided to wake up early for breakfast, which is only served from 7:30 to 9 am. What a waste of valuable sleeping time. Breakfast here, which is included in the price of your stay, consists of bread and butter, all the cereal you can eat, and coffee or tea. You can toast your bread, but they hide the toaster after breakfast. So if you want toast any other time of the day, you're screwed. The one good thing about this place is the kitchen. There are four mini-fridges, where you can store your food as long as you label it. We learned this the hard way, as some mofo stole our pasta alfredo sauce with mushrooms yesterday. We had gone to the kitchen after a day of sight-seeing, ready to make ourselves some dinner. And lo and behold, some jerkass stole our sauce. So we had to go out for dinner instead (and scored a sweet deal on fish and chips... but I digress). Of course, while the limited use of the kitchen is great, the utensils, pots and pans seem to always be dirty -- even when they have been "washed." Seriously, these backpackers are so gross. If you're going to wash something, that means wash it with soap and a sponge. Not just running it under water after you've used it. So, we¡¦ve taken to washing everything twice -- before we use it, and after. For a germaphobe like me, it's almost too gross to think about.
Speaking of gross, the showers turn my stomach. I shouldn't really complain, because I've seen worse (memories of a 2-star hotel in Nice spring to mind, where I had to shower
with my shoes on), but still. There are four shower stalls, and the water's always hot, but the floors are disgusting. It's a good thing that I shower before I put my contacts on in the morning. If I saw just how dirty it was, I think I'd prefer not to use the facilities. I can't wait to move out of this shithole.
The management here has decided that it would be a good idea to paint the hallways red and blue. So now, when we're climbing up or descending the narrow staircases, we have to make sure we don¡¦t get any of the sloppy paint job on our clothes.
Speaking of the management, we¡¦ve decided that they're here to screw us any way they can. They charge an arm and a leg for locker and storage space, and if you lose the keys (like a certain red-head I know) they bend you over their desk for an ass-raping charge of 10 pounds.
There are two eastern European women who run this place; one works at the front desk, the other cleans the place. The cleaning lady, who Dingman refers to as Ilsa
here, thinks it's okay to knock on your door as she's opening it to push a dirty mop around the rubber floor while you're still sleeping. The other day she actually slammed the side of the mop into my bed while I was still in it. It was only 10 am.
There's also a games room, which consists of a pool table. That's it. If you want to play pool, dig into those pockets because nothing here is free, except for breakfast, and I've already told you about that.
Okay, that's it. Hope you enjoyed your stay.
S.
