These few days after the wedding only existed because it was £70 cheaper to fly later in the week and I found this hostel for £5 per night. It made economic sense to stay in the mythical Kingdom of Westeros, surrounded by the medieval walls and enjoy it a little longer – providing i could actually get some work done. This had proved to be a challenge, not for lack of trying during the week but because of my own disorganisation.
I had chosen a laptop that charges via USB-C which nicely allows me to charge from any USB charger. What I hadn’t realised is that a mobile phone charger can not charge it fast enough to keep it alive during use. I had brought the wall charger for the laptop with me, but forgotten the EU adaptor so it just sat in my bag, a useless weight being lugged from place to place. I was having to charge and use it in 3 hour bursts, which was fine when i was enjoying doing daily activities, but this put an odd time pressure on me when i wanted to get more substantial work done.
After my allotted 3 hours this morning, my brain was fried from trying to work quickly. I had listened to my webinar as planned, so I strolled down the hill into the new town. Here there were lots of luxury yachts parked up, glimmering in the reflected sunlight from the blue sea. I have never seen such a clean harbour, it really was glass clear and unpolluted. I can only imagine all the world’s sea’s used to look like that once – warm, blue, inviting and without oily scum floating on the surface suffocating life.
They are nice things, yachts. Clearly well made, and luxurious. One had two jet skis hidden in its bow with small cranes to lower them into the water. Incredible and majestic pieces of nautical engineering. And still, aside from my severe vomitation whenever I step foot on a boat, I wouldn’t want to own one. I follow a rich man’s proverb that;
“If it flies, floats or fornicates – Rent it”
Of course this describes airplanes, boats and… horses…. What else?
After swanning around the teak jettys for a while, basking in the reflected millions, soaking up the smell of opulence and misplaced money; I returned to the steps, to the hike up to my £5 a night hostel and a pasta dinner. Working another hour, hostelingers started to drift in. My new German friend came back from her lessons in criminology and victimology and started pounding the wine. I joined her on the beers. A young lad called…. Something…. From Canada was also drinking with us. Although, he probably shouldn’t have been, being only 17 years old. Ironically, his participation in drinking was not being discouraged by the German social worker-in-training.
We spent a good few hours chatting and drinking about all sorts of stuff that turned to crap that turned to philosophical crap the more we drank. Eventually you could find us dancing to Christina Aguilera in the hallway knocking over the clothes horses. Good evenings drinking all in all.
