YOU KNOW YOU HAVE BEEN STAYING AT A HOTEL TOO LONG WHEN:
* The bar staff have got you your drink before you have even ordered it. It's a glass of Argentine Sauvignon Blanc and the excuse is always "It's been a long day at work!"
* You have tried everything on the menu!
* When you have started to observer the habits of your next door neighbour. Mine, always permanently has do not disturb on his door ( but actually blue tacked to the door which is weird) and listens to the TV really loud (mainly CNN, but late at night I hear grunting noises so I think he's watching porn as well)?
* All the hotel staff know your name. Some of them tell me, I'm their favourite! Yeah right! I bet they say that to all the hotel guests?
"Your home!" He's says
"No I'm not! I'm at the hotel!" Is my response, and then it suddenly occurs to me, that I am home! My home is a hotel! Oh God!
Hotels are actually quite exciting! Well if your in a good one, which I am. Everything is new and modern! I have have a king size bed, with fresh cotton sheets, that some one washes and changes for me. I have 2 plasma screen TV's which have loads of channels, most of which are foreign and I can't understand. I don't have to cook and I can just order room service if I want. I have a power shower and lots of cool free toliettries, which I still feel the need to nick, and put in my bag so I get more!, which is kind of stupidi when your there for five months (I now have a huge stock pile)! Yes living in a hotel is cool! Well it is at first, because as we all know most of us never spend more than 2 weeks living in a hotel. After that, it, well? It becomes kind of weird. There is nothing really of you in it. It's just a box to live in with the essentials but no essence. It feels sterile!
It's not only the room that's weird after a bit but the whole environment and you suddenly find that your living in this crazy artificial community. That said it the most amazing people watching experience ever and I start to become accustomed to the ways of hotel life.
The hotel had a gym which I've been hitting hard to try and get Fit but my main excuse is to relieve the stresses of work. It has all the modern wonders of any gym you will find back home and had just as many posers as well. I put my head phones on and then listen to some hard cord music (usually the Prodigy) that gets me through the pain barrier of running 5km on the treadmill as quick as possible. Whilst I'm sweating my way through this process I observe the attendees of the gym. There are the regulars who prance around like they own the place in far to tight of shorts looking at themselves in the mirror. Then there the girls who come looking amaculate with full make up and designer sports gear who mainly take selfies of themselves. The gym is always completely crowded here, but overall my main observation remains that it's more a hangout place rather than anyone actually doing any work outs.
I like to mainly hang out in the bar at the lobby. Its here I reel off emails and write. It's the best observing ground ever and the barmaid, Tina has become a good friend and she gives me free home made chocolate as I'm a good customer. It's a real melting pot of the strangest mix of people. The weekends are the best. It's a five star hotel but it's filled with the dodgiest mix of Eastern European gangsters on a Saturday night, with 80s style leather jackets, chest hair on show, with lots of gold bling. They are usually not the most handsome or youngest of men but always have a harem of young girls in tow with lots of make up, tight cleavage dresses and thigh high hooker boots. I feel strangely plain in comparison with minimal make up, baggy jumper, turn up jeans ans scruffy boots, but at the same time I've never been so happy to be plain as I have no desire to attract any of these people's attention. Also at the weekends many Israelis come over to play in the many casinos that overload the city. There're not very popular here, Tina tells me as they are very rude, which I witness first hand as Tina is confronted by one demanding ice for him and his mates own drinks they have illegally brought to the bar, as they don't want to pay for drinks. Then Tina goes and calls security on them and they get frogmarched out of the bar area while swearing at the staff in Hebrew (I don't know Hebrew but I'm 99% sure they are not saying "Have a nice day!" as they are leaving)? This process usually occurs about three times a night, and it's always quite entertaining and much better than watching CNN in my room (which I do a lot as its one of the few English channels).
We are not the only film crew staying in the hotel. Another crew is in town making a movie for an over the hill 90's action star. The crew are usually quite easy to spot as they are all American and like to talk loudly so everyone can hear about them working in the movies and living in LA. It's one night like this when I'm sat down for dinner, that I hear the table talking about the movie. There're stunt men, I realise as the conversations flows and they are also talking a lot of shit as well. I'm looking over at them. One of the stunt men seems really familiar to me, then I realised he super liked me on Tinder the night before! Shit! I hide my face with a menu, and try and finish my meal as quickly as possible before he notices me. To be fair he's actually very hot but he's a stunt man (usually very arrogant) and he's just been talking shit for the last 10 minutes about his kick boxing skills. I decide its best to delete my account after that. To be fair I hadn't been on Tinder in ages, but I was bored and feeling sorry for myself as I've finished with the guy I've been seeing as what is the point of dating some one when your the other side of Europe from each other for 5 months. Anyway What I did see of a Tinder Romania was, well? Quite different. No one really smiles in their photos, and quite a lot of guys had
"Do not disturb!" with "I'm already disturbed!" Written below it, as their profile picture! Maybe this is some sort of wooing technique in Romanian? Also lots of guys are called Vlad which just reminds me of Vlad the impaler or Dracula and I really don't want to be dating some one that could potentially bite or impale me in my sleep, as it's just not cool. I delete my Tinder account with a sense of relief.
I don't know any of the crew here and most of them have worked together before, so I'm a newbie to the group, which has been quite hard. I'm getting back one afternoon from my usual Saturday walk that has become my routine when I bump into Angela from the crew. She's South African, with a lip piercing, half her head shaved, and always wears knee high boots and mini skirts to work. I like her as she's a real character with "I don't give a shit!" attitude. I feel really honoured when she asks me to come for a drink with her in the bar later, though I think she just feels sorry for me as she always sees me on my own. I turn up to find her with a beer already under way and a cigarette in hand (you can still smoke inside in Romania). I pull up a chair beside her and order a drink and we start chatting. She's fun and entertaining. Then we have another drink and then another. Then some guy called Andy turns up who she befriended the night before at the bar, who is on a business trip. The next thing there are tequila shots being downed and then some more drinks and then more tequila! The bar is closing so Angela thinks it's a great idea that we all go back to her room for more drinks and I drunkenly agree. I'm half way through another glass of wine in her room when I'm handed a cigarette which I decide to start smoking. I know I'm drunk as I don't smoke and this sends me green. I'm sat there while the room is spinning and Angela and Andy are talking, thinking of how I can't throw up on my new colleagues sofa. They are in full flow when I stand up mid conversation, and very loudly say:
"I have to go! I'm going to throw up!" and then I'm gone in a cloud of dust! I'm racing down the corridors; hanging on in the lift; flinging open my door; and rush to my toliet and that's it! I'm sick! I'm really sick in fact!
"So much for fitting in and making a good impression with the new crew!" I think to myself as I hang my head over the toilet!
The next day I'm dying, but I'm in a nice King size bed, with fresh sheets, watching a plasma TV, ordering room service to relieve the pain. The conclusion is: living in a hotel is the best thing for a hangover but maybe only a hangover? I guess I need to be hungover a lot to cope?
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