Before I get on to the main topic of this post (the nature of which you can probably guess from its none-too-subtle title), I would like to apologize for the disruption to this blog, which has been caused by yet another international house move. Specifically, the flat in Prague was for sale sans tenants, so we had to skedaddle, as a result of which I am likely to be in Warsaw rather more than expected, so stayed tuned for more Polish-themed posts. Lest anyone remember that I'm actually meant to be in Prague working on my PhD, fear not! That's still happening (in fact, I'm in Prague now) and I'll have a permanent place sorted out from January. In the interim, though, accommodation is an on-going problem to be solved, which brings me to today's topic…Hostelling.
I am making something of a brash statement with this post – after all, I've stayed in quite a few hostels in my day, in a variety of contexts, and I've mostly pretended (even to myself) that I both like them and find them meaningful, in the same way one speaks of summer camp, as something you have to experience. I do this out of the same combination of guilt and peer pressure that made my teen-aged self agree (on more than one occasion) to accompany friends on trips to the local amusement park because it's-fun-and-everyone-likes-it. It may be that another trip to Hersheypark awaits me, and I may well spend another night in a hostel, but that doesn't negate the value of honesty. Therefore, let it be known that, along with inverted rollercoasters (especially this one), I have a significant antipathy towards hostels.
It's not their frequently Spartan nature that I object too. Not all accommodation needs to be luxurious and, along with stints in boutique hotels and the occasional five-star, I've had lovely stays in very basic pensions and guest houses, as well as a variety of two- and three-star hotels in locations from Croatia to Montmartre. What bothers me most about hostels is their meanness, particularly the stinginess with which they mete out their measly services. Hostels are Ryanair translated to the hospitality industry. Ages ago, I read this article discussing results from at 2006 J. P. Morgan survey of hotel guests which show that said guests prefer paying for their accommodation in one lump sum, to being constantly badgered to fork over for yet another a la carte option that feels like its necessity should go without saying. This is true even if that single payment in larger than the totaled side dish options.
The classic example of this in the hostelling is the towel. The hostel in which I'm currently staying (I'm not going to name names, as it's not a bad place and they're all the same when it comes to this stuff) charges 200 Czech crowns (roughly £7.50) as a deposit for a towel. Why is this necessary? As checkout time is 11am, and presumably I'm going to shower before I leave, what could possibly induce me to jam a soggy towel into my suitcase? If I was okay with that, I'd probably have brought my own towel anyway. As for the deposit – I get it back when I leave, of course, provided that I produce the receipt I was given, along with the towel in question. Why is the receipt necessary? Surely the towel itself is a sufficient proof of purchase. Does the hostel staff need the receipt because they fear that, along with Let's Go Eastern Europe 2010, I may have a commercial embroidery machine crammed into my Ryanair-surcharge-proof carry-on suitcase, which I have brought along for the express purpose of embossing the hostel's logo to produce four replicas of the towel I've actually borrowed, in order to collect a whopping 1000kc at checkout? Highly unlikely, particularly given that the enforcement of "quiet time" between 10pm-6am would render such a noisy activity highly impractical. Which brings me back to my original question – why is any of this necessary? How is a business model that tracks such an absurdly obvious amenity as towels to this degree at all functional, let alone a good idea?!
At odds with such petty meanness and the distrust it implies, is the back-packer allure of hostels. Why stay in a cold, corporatized hotel when you can share a room with six strangers, do your own laundry and learn about the world? While this is lovely in theory, I find it's not often so in practice. Someone always snores, someone's on a work trip and there's usually a pair of girls partying their way across Europe. Or if it's fine in the room, then there are no cups available for actually drinking the free (cheap) tea, the wi-fi doesn't work, or there's no quiet place to receive a phone call or use skype. I experienced this last situation last night. I solved it by wandering outside to take my call (sssshhh!!!) while pondering the paradoxical fact that while there was nowhere inside that I could talk on the phone, there was ample space for a loud (and detailed) conversation on the topic of menstruation and getting/falling pregnant. How? Why?
While hostels undoubtedly perplex me, those two questions could also be applied to my decision, given my feelings, to stay in one. This time, the choice was motivated by a variety of factors – when booking, I reflected that none of the Prague hotels I've stayed in have been that great, so why pay nice-hotel prices for accommodation that wasn't particularly so? Also, and this is perhaps the stronger reason, I felt, I'll admit, the siren backpacker song (sans backpack, in my case). I wondered if I was getting too old and set in my ways – why does someone my age need to stay in a hotel anyway? Am I really so far along the autistic spectrum that I can't handle three nights in a room with other twenty-something females? The answer to this question is that while I can, this doesn't necessarily mean I should. In fact, Mr P (after my rant regarding the lack of tea cups) has already made me promise that I will stay in a hotel the next time. All of which, taken together, makes me wonder if my frustration might somehow be parlayed into a business venture: A Room of One's Own: the budget hotels for post-grad students. The concept would be quite simple: the titular promise, with wi-fi, coffee/tea, cup and (most importantly) towel included.
