As it stands last nights frivolities appear to be remaining last night. The social awkwardness moment doesn’t really come. This is a good thing, since I expect to be here as long as it takes my supplies to come through. I find it quite ironic that a GPS tracker has got lost in the post.
A few weeks ago I might have mentioned something about working in a hostel. This hostel. I enquired, the response was positive and a position available. While I waited for everything to fall into place, including all the charity and fundraising gear, I could keep my costs low and stay for very little, if anything at all, and at the same time start to learn about how a hostel is run. Some excellent experience towards my future plans. After practically shaking hands on it, I was then informed a few days later that they had already been looking at someone, and they wouldn’t require my help. Disappointed yes, but by no means upset or too bothered. That was until the new ‘help’ walked in yesterday.
She had arrived about a week after me, had become very paly-paly with another staff member (Nervous Chameleon Boy), and returned from a weekend or so partying with him. With the amount of time I’ve spent here now, I could practically do the work without being shown what to do. Something smelled seriously fishy. I decided that a raised eyebrow was all I should muster at this point, and bide my time until more facts emerged. I went for a pint with a new dweller, a very friendly and entertaining 38-something guy from Manchester. After expressing my concerns to him, and although we saw eye to eye, it wasn’t long before I was more focused on his bar antics and the prospect of him getting us killed.
Richard would talk to anyone. When I say anyone, I mean even if you don’t speak a word of the language, he will somehow manage to form some kind of conversation, regardless of two people talking at each other, and neither of them has a clue what the other is saying. Undeterred, out comes google translate on his smart phone. Perhaps he’s just so infectious in his humour, confidence and outgoing personality, you can’t help but get swept along. Yet alarm bells are ringing when he’s chatting up these two ‘enhanced’ peroxide blondes, standing at the bar with a leathery skin head, a Vin Diesel-alike, wearing so much gold you could melt him down and wear him as a chain. A white B.A Baracus.
“You know these guys are probably some kind of Neo Nazi’s right?” I whisper, having already been informed this place is something of a haunt for them and their trophy girls.
“That’s alright,” Richard grins, “I’m off to tell them I’m a Jew.”
He is, and he does, with barefaced cheek and wild abandon. He’s tried to steal someone’s liquor in jest, and managed to defuse the situation so much that they’ve bought him a drink. Then he’s bringing over pictures of these girls who have somehow turned out to be porn stars. How does that seriously come up in conversation? Ever?!
“So what do you do?”
“I’m an accountant. What about you?”
“I’m a porn star.”
Seriously who does this happen to?! Judging by the whirlwind of confidence storming the bar, it looks like it happens to Richard on more than one occasion. There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and this, I was to find, was something I would be heatedly discussing over the weekend. Right now I was content to almost beat a Nazi in an arm wrestle.
Neo Nazi’s and Porn stars
As it stands last nights frivolities appear to be remaining last night. The social awkwardness moment doesn’t really come. This is a good thing, since I expect to be here as long as it takes my supplies to come through. I find it quite ironic that a GPS tracker has got lost in the post.
A few weeks ago I might have mentioned something about working in a hostel. This hostel. I enquired, the response was positive and a position available. While I waited for everything to fall into place, including all the charity and fundraising gear, I could keep my costs low and stay for very little, if anything at all, and at the same time start to learn about how a hostel is run. Some excellent experience towards my future plans. After practically shaking hands on it, I was then informed a few days later that they had already been looking at someone, and they wouldn’t require my help. Disappointed yes, but by no means upset or too bothered. That was until the new ‘help’ walked in yesterday.
She had arrived about a week after me, had become very paly-paly with another staff member (Nervous Chameleon Boy), and returned from a weekend or so partying with him. With the amount of time I’ve spent here now, I could practically do the work without being shown what to do. Something smelled seriously fishy. I decided that a raised eyebrow was all I should muster at this point, and bide my time until more facts emerged. I went for a pint with a new dweller, a very friendly and entertaining 38-something guy from Manchester. After expressing my concerns to him, and although we saw eye to eye, it wasn’t long before I was more focused on his bar antics and the prospect of him getting us killed.
Richard would talk to anyone. When I say anyone, I mean even if you don’t speak a word of the language, he will somehow manage to form some kind of conversation, regardless of two people talking at each other, and neither of them has a clue what the other is saying. Undeterred, out comes google translate on his smart phone. Perhaps he’s just so infectious in his humour, confidence and outgoing personality, you can’t help but get swept along. Yet alarm bells are ringing when he’s chatting up these two ‘enhanced’ peroxide blondes, standing at the bar with a leathery skin head, a Vin Diesel-alike, wearing so much gold you could melt him down and wear him as a chain. A white B.A Baracus.
“You know these guys are probably some kind of Neo Nazi’s right?” I whisper, having already been informed this place is something of a haunt for them and their trophy girls.
“That’s alright,” Richard grins, “I’m off to tell them I’m a Jew.”
He is, and he does, with barefaced cheek and wild abandon. He’s tried to steal someone’s liquor in jest, and managed to defuse the situation so much that they’ve bought him a drink. Then he’s bringing over pictures of these girls who have somehow turned out to be porn stars. How does that seriously come up in conversation? Ever?!
“So what do you do?”
“I’m an accountant. What about you?”
“I’m a porn star.”
Seriously who does this happen to?! Judging by the whirlwind of confidence storming the bar, it looks like it happens to Richard on more than one occasion. There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and this, I was to find, was something I would be heatedly discussing over the weekend. Right now I was content to almost beat a Nazi in an arm wrestle.