It has been a couple of weeks since my last update, and I have come to realise that I only feel like writing this when I have something to moan about. There is not a lot going on to piss me off right now. I have integrated seamlessly into live in hostel life. Quite frankly I could do this forever. On this basis I have decided to extend my stay in California until my visa expires on 8th January. I am however quite wary of outstaying my visa, as two weeks ago the armed immigration police turned up at reception at 6.30am asking about a french girl that was working here. Her visa had expired but by pure chance she had left for the Grand Canyon for two days at 6am that morning. Had she not gone that day then she would have spent the weekend in prison waiting for a court date. Luckily we were able to send word and she sneaked in the side entrance, picked up her shit and got the hell out of the country (won't ever be allowed back in).
I have found myself growing increasingly comfortable with this lifestyle. Management have moved me from the sweatbox jungle to the more homely den, which is reserved for the longer-term crowd. At four beds it is much less hectic than the seven berth jungle. We have a flat screen tv, cable tv, dvd player, and as of last night a playstation 3 with Fifa 2012. There is a really good crew here at the moment and the english lads James and Tom have just come back for christmas, shame we will all be locked away playing computer games for most of it... I feel quite privileged to be in the den, it usually takes a while to earn the trust of management that you are responsible (I know) but I got in quick. I don't know if it something that I said but around 60% of the staff left within a few days of each other a couple of weeks back, so after two weeks on the job I suddenly found myself senior staff – sort of a hostel sage for the young apprentices, an old head who the newbies can turn to when they need toilet cleaning advice.
Since my last entry I have started to make money running some of the evening activities like bar crawls, poker nights, beer pong and also running the hostel bar (which is basically just buying booze from the supermarket and selling it at a mark-up). Essentially I am getting drunk for free whilst turning a tidy little profit. Bunsen burner, nice little earner. As a bar man I thrive but i'm hit and miss on the bar crawl front. I tend to get pretty drunk and two out of the last three times I have taken the group out I have been too smashed to remember to take them to the last bar. The other time I broke myself on the mechanical bull and had to retire injured before we went to the last bar. Chris Finch, bloody good rep. One thing that I am finding a little annoying is telling the same story over and over again. There is a high turnover of guests and I must have had the same conversation one hundred times. What makes it even more annoying is that we overhear each other telling the same stories that we have also told each other, so it is just a merry go round of the same stories over and over again. It has pretty much been the same all year, but I suppose it is a pretty minor complaint on the scale of things.
Unfortunately an additional month in America means one less month in South America and missing out on having christmas with Kipper and his extended family in Peru. Bit of a gutter but I am actually almost living at zero cost here and I am having a fucking blast. Christmas here is going to be awesome if thanksgiving is anything to go by. I don't really know what the deal is with thanksgiving, something about an indian, a pilgrim and a reacharound, but as with all holidays the meaning of it isn't really the point. The managers prepared an amazing meal for fifty odd people and I ran the bar, scooping a cool $200 in the process. I would have made more had it not been for the cruel hand of fate. I forget how it even began but things escalated quickly. We ate at around 6pm and by 8.30pm I found myself topless with a bottle of cheap red wine in my hand and the whole hostel chanting my name. Someone said that they would not drink it for $100 and I flippantly mentioned that I would down it in one for $50. Obviously I did not expect anything to come of this but ten minutes later I find myself unscrewing the bottle stood in front of a $74 whip. Needless to say I got within two inches of finishing the bottle before wine started dribbling out of my nostrils and choking me. As I did not finish it in one I got no money, but on the plus side I was pier pressured into to downing the other two inches of wine. I was forced to sober up at around 1am when one of the guests came to reception and said that there was a problem in his room. When I got there I found some string bean kid starfished face down into the carpet in a pile of his own sick. What was even more humiliating for him was the fact that his nutsack was hanging out and he had pissed in a locker. After taking a few photographs I began to feel a bit bad for this kid, he looked in a bit of a bad way (and apparently it was me who had encouraged him to down the rest of his bottle of vodka). The receptionist, who has something of a short tolerance for guests, was immediately on the phone for an ambulance (“they can clear it up”). I managed to persuade the receptionist to cancel the paramedics as I realised that it would literally cost him $1500 for treatment, which his insurance would not cover. My good samaritan attitude was soon rewarded when I got to put him to bed and clear up his sick with a dustpan, stopping every yard or so to wretch.
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As I am saving a bit of money by staying in California I have invested in a return flight to Salt Lake City, Utah. I am off to stay with the girl I mentioned in the previous blog, who is putting me up for a week and taking me snowboarding.. Pretty awesome considering I only met her and her brother on one very drunken afternoon. I am hoping that the brother does not punch me in the face, as he works on the private jet of the owner of what is considered to be the USA's best ski resort, and apparently I will be getting free ski passes and equipment hire, saweeet. My only minor concern is that clothing wise I am set to get a bit cold. I only have one pair of jeans and a hoody. The rest of my bag is t-shirts and shorts. I haven't even got a coat and it is looking pretty warm over there at the moment. I'm not really sure what to expect to be honest, I don't know a lot about that part of the country, but I am looking forward to getting away from cleaning toilets for a little while.
So yeah, as you can probably tell I am feeling pretty smug about things right now and have very little to moan about. Expect an increase in activity after I break an arm snowboarding and have to pay £20k in hospital fees as my insurance does not include winter sports. Boom
