June 5--One Weird Kind of Hotel
Oh my GOSH, cities are the WORST! I mean, I understand that they are cultural hubs which provide job opportunities and better public transportation, but man, has anyone WALKED OUT of a city recently? It ain't no walk in the park literally! It's all warehouses and hotels and sketchy looking clubs--it's just not great.
Imagine you go into an abandoned building – recently abandoned mind you. There’s a little dust, maybe a weird smell, but it looks like the hotel just went under, and everything was left – the desk is cluttered with old papers, there are expired looking cleaning supplies behind the desk, the window curtains are closed and the light filters through in waves in the dusty air. Past the desk you see a dusky doorway with what looks like a table with office chairs around it. The table has a brand-new set of games, a deck of cards awaiting a poker match that will never come. Past the table and around the corner is a breakfast room, all set up with overripe fruit on all the tables, a clutter of a microwave and random cooking implements on one side of the desk. The food is all in glass cupboards, prepackaged and expiring tomorrow, ready and waiting to be consumed by guests who don’t exist. This room has yet another door that leads to the dining room proper that obviously has not been used in a while. Random household objects, costumes and instruments crowd the tables, the bar is littered with more old papers, office, and cleaning supplies. On the window sills lie the bodies of dead flies while their brethren try in vain to bat the panes of glass with their tiny heads. This room too is shrouded in a yellowish light that tries to burn through the curtains. As you ascend the steps of the hotel, you come to couches forever empty, mini-fridges devoid of food and life. The stench of old cigarette smoke bats at your nose, and you see the remains of cigarettes, long since cold. Cupboards with freshly washed sheets that are left ajar. You go back to the reception desk, ring the bell, and magically a man appears to check you in. Do you stay the night?
One exciting and kind of suspicious activity we did was after dinner. The hotel owner brought out a Saint James costume. He is usually dressed as a traditional pilgrim, with a travelers cloak, walking stick, drinking gourd and hat. But this hotel owner brings the articles out (worn by how many people, I don’t know) and tells Profe Sherman to put them on. He does, and then the owner asks for someone with a good reading voice – one of the students volunteers. Finally, he brings out a clay bowl that is flaming and smells STRONGLY of alcohol. He enlists one of the students to take a ladle and dramatically scoop some of the contents of the clay bowl before letting it drop back into the bowl after every line of the poem he has just handed to the aforementioned student. Mind you – the contents of the bowl (strong alcohol) are currently on fire. His last request before the poem begins is that after every line, when the alcohol is dropped back into the bowl, that we howl… I don’t know what we participated in, but it was probably the closest any of us have ever been to witch crafts ;D
We ended the night in the darkened breakfast room playing Mafia, which was actually a fun group activity, but as always, I was TERRIBLE at it – I can never tell who are the killers, and if I’m the killer, people ALWAYS know.
Hey, at least we ended in a nice spot right?.... Wrong. I mean, it actually had a nice bathroom, decent beds, and good airflow from the windows, but MAN did this hotel have a WEIRD vibe. Let me see if I can paint a picture for you:
Imagine you go into an abandoned building – recently abandoned mind you. There’s a little dust, maybe a weird smell, but it looks like the hotel just went under, and everything was left – the desk is cluttered with old papers, there are expired looking cleaning supplies behind the desk, the window curtains are closed and the light filters through in waves in the dusty air. Past the desk you see a dusky doorway with what looks like a table with office chairs around it. The table has a brand-new set of games, a deck of cards awaiting a poker match that will never come. Past the table and around the corner is a breakfast room, all set up with overripe fruit on all the tables, a clutter of a microwave and random cooking implements on one side of the desk. The food is all in glass cupboards, prepackaged and expiring tomorrow, ready and waiting to be consumed by guests who don’t exist. This room has yet another door that leads to the dining room proper that obviously has not been used in a while. Random household objects, costumes and instruments crowd the tables, the bar is littered with more old papers, office, and cleaning supplies. On the window sills lie the bodies of dead flies while their brethren try in vain to bat the panes of glass with their tiny heads. This room too is shrouded in a yellowish light that tries to burn through the curtains. As you ascend the steps of the hotel, you come to couches forever empty, mini-fridges devoid of food and life. The stench of old cigarette smoke bats at your nose, and you see the remains of cigarettes, long since cold. Cupboards with freshly washed sheets that are left ajar. You go back to the reception desk, ring the bell, and magically a man appears to check you in. Do you stay the night?
That is literally what the hotel was like – except the hotel owner also owned the hotel 100m away and had OTHER plans for our dinner that evening. Like this place felt like a fever dream. But the bathroom smelled of bleach (always a good sign… although bleach is usually used to clean up… specific things) and we were in a corner room, so we had two windows to keep the airflow going – which was ESSENTIAL because the smoke smell was REAL. There was a common area outside with maybe five tables, all of which had at LEAST two ash trays. The odd thing about the hotel – despite feeling old and abandoned - it had THE BEST WIFI of any hotel we have stayed at… like, what the HECK!
It kind of reminded me of an SNL Skit :D A personal favorite of my brother and me ;) some specifically applicable quotes: “Located between the DMV and a darkened Sonic, it’ll have your Uber Driver asking, ‘You sure?’” – literally this place was in the MOST RANDOM SPOT right off the highway and was in the grungiest area. Or another good one, “We have all the amenities required by law including… band aid colored blanket, stain in place you HAVE to touch, cup with lil’ hat.” “For all of life’s less ‘sparkly moments.’” Just a great skit but this hotel is about as close as the one you could get from that skit :D
We ended the night in the darkened breakfast room playing Mafia, which was actually a fun group activity, but as always, I was TERRIBLE at it – I can never tell who are the killers, and if I’m the killer, people ALWAYS know.
Comments
Post a Comment