The sniff terrorist

Today Joanna went back to Sweden and I checked into a cheaper hotel. Since I'm not splitting the cost with her tonight I thought I'd find a hostel and save money.

I looked online and found a lot of hostels, some of which offered 34-BED ROOMS. Um, no.

Since I'm not a) an orphan or b) working in a refugee camp, 34 people in a room is kind of a lot. I thought it was a FEW too many until I remembered the Prague hostel and I decided it's 33 people too many.

The Prague hostel, Sir Toby's, was great, actually: bar in the basement, kickass breakfast, high ceilings, wood floors and huge windows. The last time I regularly stayed in hostels was ten years ago in South America.

Since then I've shared lots of space but usually with people I know. As a COTA volunteer in Guatemala I shared rooms - in hotels, hospitals, and army barracks - but that was work. I was just grateful that I didn't have a cleft palate or an untreated medical condition. I was glad that no one was going to hardware store to buy a saw to amputate MY limb.

There were four bunk beds in my room at Prague and it was supposed to be a female room though I couldn't help but notice that a boy snuck into some girl's bunk and that there was an AWFUL LOT OF GIGGLING going on.

I didn't care; I slept like a MF. The first night.

The second night I kept waking up because someone wrapped everything she owned in plastic bags and went on a hardcore rummaging binge. I don't know what the fuck she was looking for but she might as well have wrapped all her belongings in 747 engines, it was so loud.

Fine! Whatever! That's why it's cheap.

Until someone else, a Columbian chick who seemed nice which made me feel bad for wanting to punch her so much, kept SNIFFING. She sniffed eight thousand times between 6 and 8 am. And I know a sniff doesn't sound like a big deal but in a quiet room, it is. It really is.

I laid there, having been woken up by a fucking sniff, my stomach knotting more with each snotty inhale. If I'd had a tissue box I would have thrown it at her head. I considered going to the bathroom, grabbing some paper, wrestling her to the ground, and making her blow like she was a little kid.

In the end, I opted for passive over aggressive and simply got up and took a shower. I may have flounced out of bed but I'm not sure.

Tonight, in Copenhagen, I have a walk-in-closet-sized room ALL TO MYSELF. It reminds me a tiny bit of the hotel my mom checked us out of five minutes after checking into in 1985 when we were in DC, the Harrison Hotel: rattly elevator, graffiti walls, and bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

I remember that light bulb being the last straw for my mom. I'm sure the graffiti wasn't a nice touch, either, although I love it now, it makes me feel like we were in Breakin, but the bulb reminded my mom of the shitty places she stayed in as a student in Paris.

And showing up to a seedy hotel with her kid, who happened to be wearing a sailor suit, just wasn't going to cut it.