The Spanish inquisition - A Charlie Brooker style rant about my Spanish roommates.
So you've decided to treat your teenage daughter to a lovely 5-day-non-stop-fun trip to London. And you're Spanish (not being racist or anything, they were in fact from Spain, deal with it.) For some odd reason you decide to stay in a youth hostel, which is fine in itself as the hostel isn't one of those 'oh, we only take backpackers aged 18-35' and takes families as well as lonely young travellers from distant countries. The hostel offers private rooms (presumably for said families) as well as dorms, but you, in an attempt to save money choose to stay in a dorm room. Perhaps it's because you're squeezing the last drops of money from your bank account to fund this. However, from the number of 'I heart London' jumpers you bought I doubt that's the case. Let's just say you'd rather spend more money on cheesy overpriced tourist grabbing rubbish than on private accommodation which you so clearly think you deserve. Because dear readers, this pair of mother and daughter, although being rather nice and friendly, treated the 6-bed-female-dorm as their private luxury hotel room.
On the first morning after their arrival I awoke to the horrid sounds of a hair dryer. A quick glance at my watch suggested it was 6:45am. "Surely not", I thought to myself. "What kind of selfish, ill advised person uses a hair dryer so early in the morning when all the other people in the room are still fast asleep?" A Spanish mother apparently, for further examinations of my alarm clock and my mobile phone confirmed that it was indeed 6:45. This woman then continued to talk to her daughter in decibels that wouldn't be considered polite even during the day in the middle of a crowded market. The hair dryer was used by the Spaniards 7 times that morning over a course of 3 hours, until they finally left at about 9:30.
This routine of hair drying and loud speaking at unmentionable hours of the morning carried on everyday. Oblivious to their own crimes against humanity the two would tut and shake heads as myself and other residents of the DORM ROOM would arrive back as late as 11pm(!) or god forbid midnight, and whisper to each other while trying to get our things arranged in the quietest possible way. People are sleeping here after all, and we have basic manners and hostel etiquette. We won't stoop down to their level and get our revenge in a childish way. We'll just withhold our anger in true British style and write all about it in a livejournal entry later.
Then there was the nakedness. I appreciate that some people are so confident in their skin that they don't mind getting undressed in front of others. I've stayed at hostels many times and have come across girls who take all their clothes off. But they do tend to put other clothes on, apparently it's called 'changing'. They don't strut about the place in their birthday suit! And they certainly don't crouch in front of their locker organising their shit like that. Put some clothes on woman! I do not need this to be the first thing I see as I open my eyes in the morning. Despite the awful sightings I did manage to fall asleep again and the next time my eyes opened a different atrocity appeared before them. The two were trying to pack their suitcases, one hour before check out, and their special Spanish way of doing it was not a respectful 'I'll put all my things on my bed and nicely pack them into the suitcase which is also quite close to the bed because I don't want to get in the way of other people, and I will do it as quietly as possible because the others aren't checking out this morning and are still sleeping'. Oh no no no. The suitcases were both open in the middle of the room, resembling a jacket potato awaiting it's filling, and the Spaniards were hurling Big Bens, double decker buses and an unspeakable amount of the previous mentioned 'I heart London' jumpers into them, all the while shouting at each other.
I watched in horror and disgust as at 10:05 (Check out is at 10!) the daughter sat on her suitcase in an attempt to get it to close. I could only wish it would either explode, sending her arse up through the roof in a Mighty-Boosh-Call-Of-The-Yeti kind of way, or at the very least that they would be forced to pay unreasonable amounts of money for overweight at the airport.
If this is any indication of the Spanish way of torture then Monty Python got it all wrong. The Spanish Inquisition wasn't about cushion stabbing. It was about drying your hair at 6am and subjecting innocent bystanders to images of your crouching naked 40 year old body.
You'd never expect it though. They did get that one right.
On the first morning after their arrival I awoke to the horrid sounds of a hair dryer. A quick glance at my watch suggested it was 6:45am. "Surely not", I thought to myself. "What kind of selfish, ill advised person uses a hair dryer so early in the morning when all the other people in the room are still fast asleep?" A Spanish mother apparently, for further examinations of my alarm clock and my mobile phone confirmed that it was indeed 6:45. This woman then continued to talk to her daughter in decibels that wouldn't be considered polite even during the day in the middle of a crowded market. The hair dryer was used by the Spaniards 7 times that morning over a course of 3 hours, until they finally left at about 9:30.
This routine of hair drying and loud speaking at unmentionable hours of the morning carried on everyday. Oblivious to their own crimes against humanity the two would tut and shake heads as myself and other residents of the DORM ROOM would arrive back as late as 11pm(!) or god forbid midnight, and whisper to each other while trying to get our things arranged in the quietest possible way. People are sleeping here after all, and we have basic manners and hostel etiquette. We won't stoop down to their level and get our revenge in a childish way. We'll just withhold our anger in true British style and write all about it in a livejournal entry later.
Then there was the nakedness. I appreciate that some people are so confident in their skin that they don't mind getting undressed in front of others. I've stayed at hostels many times and have come across girls who take all their clothes off. But they do tend to put other clothes on, apparently it's called 'changing'. They don't strut about the place in their birthday suit! And they certainly don't crouch in front of their locker organising their shit like that. Put some clothes on woman! I do not need this to be the first thing I see as I open my eyes in the morning. Despite the awful sightings I did manage to fall asleep again and the next time my eyes opened a different atrocity appeared before them. The two were trying to pack their suitcases, one hour before check out, and their special Spanish way of doing it was not a respectful 'I'll put all my things on my bed and nicely pack them into the suitcase which is also quite close to the bed because I don't want to get in the way of other people, and I will do it as quietly as possible because the others aren't checking out this morning and are still sleeping'. Oh no no no. The suitcases were both open in the middle of the room, resembling a jacket potato awaiting it's filling, and the Spaniards were hurling Big Bens, double decker buses and an unspeakable amount of the previous mentioned 'I heart London' jumpers into them, all the while shouting at each other.
I watched in horror and disgust as at 10:05 (Check out is at 10!) the daughter sat on her suitcase in an attempt to get it to close. I could only wish it would either explode, sending her arse up through the roof in a Mighty-Boosh-Call-Of-The-Yeti kind of way, or at the very least that they would be forced to pay unreasonable amounts of money for overweight at the airport.
If this is any indication of the Spanish way of torture then Monty Python got it all wrong. The Spanish Inquisition wasn't about cushion stabbing. It was about drying your hair at 6am and subjecting innocent bystanders to images of your crouching naked 40 year old body.
You'd never expect it though. They did get that one right.