On how I was kicked out of a hostel in Scotland (sort of)

Disclaimer: The contents of this publication may or may not be real. Some parts of this piece could be only the product of the delusional mind of the author. Also, she wasn’t wearing her glasses when all of these happened. Most of the names were changed for privacy reasons, but then again, some of these people may not even exist in the first place.

Previously, on The DreamPacker:

If you haven’t read my early experiences in Scotland, you can always have a look at my previous article. But, long story short: I had just arrived to my first destination, which was officially the most boring town in the entire Scottish east coast: Anstruther.

My job had gone from Communications Specialist in a high-end university to answering phones calls. I was roommates with a fifty-something Spanish lady who couldn’t understand a word I was saying (neither in English, nor in Spanish) and she and I were supposed to run a hostel with drunk guests while the manager was vacationing on the other side of the world.

Not exactly what I had pictured while I was booking my ticket.

Girl squads and birthday cakes

I had actually started to see other hostel opportunities in Edinburgh, figuring that at least there I could spend more time with people instead of seagulls. That’s when Lena arrived.

Lena was a 26 years old German girl, she was studying to be an art teacher, she liked reading and indie movies and she was taller than me. It might seem weird, but when you are 1.76 and meet other tall girls, you automatically bond. I can´t explain why

And then there was Anya. I met Anya the day before my birthday. Lena and Maruja were baking a cheesecake for me, but Maruja had turned the whipped cream into butter and was completely useless, I was trying to find a way to hide it from her (she was so excited to bake that I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth). That’s when Anya came to scene. She approached me, all secret agent-mode, and suggested that we should buy a pre-made whipped cream and put it on the cake without Maruja noticing. She’ll join me in the secret mission to the supermarket because she loved danger… And she also needed beef cubes.

Anyway, somehow, at the end of the night, the whipped cream mission was a success and Anya was officially coming with us to Edinburgh the next day to do the Potter Trail (remember what I told you about tall girls bonding? That also applies with Harry Potter fans) and show me a good proper Scottish celebration. Yeah, just like that, in one evening, Lena, Anya and I became partners in crime and best friends on the road.

The manager who wanted to cumbia dance

When we got back to Anstruther after a wonderful day in Edinburgh, Anya suggested doing a mini pub-crawl to finish the night. We went to a very traditional place where the bartender judged us for ordering cider and sat down next to the window. And that’s when someone scared the bejesus out of us.

The manager was there, outside the pub, face glued to the window. He was knocking on the crystal and waving at us. Our heart rates hadn’t normalized when he was already inside the place carrying two beers with him.

“Hey” he said sitting down next to Lena. “I just arrived from holidays and since you guys didn’t invite me, I thought about joining you anyways”.

“Uh…” I started, looking at the other girls and having one of those telepathic conversations most friends groups can have (yeah, those do exist). We didn’t really know this guy, but we guessed that there wasn’t anything wrong with a couple of drinks…

We were wrong.

There was some small talk, but as The Manager drank more beer he started to get more… Well, annoying. His hand was constantly on Lena’s leg, no matter how many times she tried to move away and his familiarity became just awkward.

“So, Daniela” he started “You are Mexican”.

“That I am”, I answered.

“So you must know how to dance cumbia”.

“I know a thing or two” I said cautiously. I had taken a few lessons back in University, but I was not as good as half of the class. Also, I don’t really know if I should feel offended when people assume that I know how to cumbia dance just because I’m Mexican.

“So it’s decided, then. Tomorrow”. The Manager declared with contempt.

“Uhm… Pardon? What’s happening tomorrow?” I asked, confused.

“We will dance cumbia. You can teach the girls”, ha added pointing at Lena and Anya, “They can be the backup dancers. We will film all of it and post it on YouTube”.

“Excuse me?” Lena jumped in, concern written all over her face.

“Yes, I love cumbia. Daniela knows how to dance…”

“I don’t really…”

“Daniela knows how to dance, you can learn too and we will shoot the video on the beach. Me on the front, you girls in the back.”

“I don’t want to dance”, Lena insisted, almost panicking. She was such a centred girl. But, to be fair, I am not and the idea of performing a Latin dance on a public Scottish beach with an intoxicated manager while someone filmed was not appealing to me either.

“Of course you do” he said, not really listening to her, “C’mon Daniela, show her the steps”.

“No” Yeah, sometimes I don’t have any politeness to spare.

“Tell you what, I’ll go to get another pint and then we’ll discuss the details for tomorrow’s shooting”.

“There won’t be a shooting” I insisted, but he was already heading towards the bar, stumbling a little bit. We had lost count on how many drinks he had had, but they were clearly starting to show.

“What the…?” Anya started.

“Is it me or that was completely weird?” I asked.

“That is creepy” Lena agreed. Again, after another silent mutual agreement, we grab our stuff and head back home.

The Wedding Party and the naked body

There was a wedding party coming next day, so we had to get up early to receive them. We needed to open the office and assign the rooms. Except there was a little problem: we didn’t have the key.

It wasn’t on the drawer we used to keep it and Maruja couldn’t have it because she was on a holiday with her son, so there was only one possibility: The Manager had it.

However, there was no sign of him anywhere. We didn’t hear him coming back and we weren’t even sure he was at the hostel. We tried to tidy up the ground floor first and wait for him to appear, but it was after noon and he was still absent. That’s when the doorbell rang and the first guests started to arrive.

“We need to do something” Lena said. “We can’t let these people without a room”.

“Maybe we should check out the private rooms and see if he’s there”. I suggested. We asked the guests to wait at the kitchen while Lena and I ventured upstairs in the quest to find The Manager.

We didn’t really need to check the rooms. The smell gave it away. This pungent, nauseating scent leaded us right to one of the double rooms. The door wasn’t locked, but we still hesitated a little bit. We had a quick debate on who should peek inside the room, but Lena lost so she finally ventured and slightly opened the door.

A scream came out of her mouth and she slammed the door closed again. Concerned, I tried to ask what happened. I mean, for the smell, there could be a dead body in the other side of that door. However, the only thing I distinguished between Lena’s mumbling was the word “naked”.

I was still debating if I wanted to know the rest when we got interrupted by a raspy voice inside the room.

“What?…” The hoarse, hung over voice of the manager talked to us between grunts. Lena looked at me like saying “I looked inside the room, so now it’s your turn”, so I sighed before speaking.

“Hey. We need the key for the office. The guests for the wedding are arriving and we can’t check them in”.

“So what? The key is on the drawer”. He answered sharply.

“If it were, we wouldn’t be here. We checked there and it’s not.” I answered, politeness fading away once more. There was some more grunting on the other side of the door and finally a silver key appeared on the crack under the door.

I admit I didn’t say thank you.

“After we sort these guests we are going to the harbour” Lena said, bravely. “There are still more people coming, though…”

“Yeah, I’ll manage… Later.”

The smell was unbearable, so we went downstairs to deal with the party. Anya joined us later and we went to get ice cream at the pier.

“You think it was OK that we left?” Lena asked contemplating her scoop.

“Definitely” I said. “He’d be OK”.

He wasn’t. He gave the wrong keys to the wrong guests and assigned the same room to two different couples. Let’s say there was a lot of shouting that night, but Lena, Anya and I locked ourselves in the staff room to watch Zootropolis. We had already worked overtime that day.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu

We never spoke about the drunk incident after that night and The Manager didn’t bring the cumbia dance up again. He became quieter around us and mainly talked to Maruja.

I kept doing my day-to day job, since the Community Manager duties seemed forgotten. Also, I was only having two days off per week even when the original position stated that I was supposed to have three. However, Anstruther had turned out to be a very comfortable place to be (who would have thought it?) and I had only one week left.That weekend I was going to take a two-day trip to the Highlands (a birthday present from my parents) and afterward I’d spend three more days in Anstruther before flying to my next destination: Belgium.

The morning was slow and Maruja, Lena and I decided to split the tasks of the day. I was folding some bed sheets in the laundry room, utterly bored, when I received a whatsapp call from my friend Pau. She has been living in Barcelona all year and since we discovered we only had a one-hour time difference we had been looking for the slightest pretext to call each other. I put on my headphones and took the call while I kept folding. After all, how much mental space does that take? We were talking and laughing in Spanish while the manager came in. He didn’t say anything just looked at me and left.

My shift was almost over, so I went to the bathroom to grab some extra toiletries for my trip to the Highlands. When I came out I found The Manager outside, waiting for me.

“Where have you been?” He asked.

“The loo” I answered.

“And what have you been doing?” he asked again.

“I’d prefer not to go into details about that” I said, starting to get suspicious.

“I mean, what have you been doing all morning?” He said, his voice tone increasing.

“Well, you saw me, I was sorting the laundry”.

“And that’s what you’ve been doing all morning?” The manager inquired once more, a condescending tone growing stronger.

“No, I also checked the dorm rooms and the kitchen… What is this all about?”

“What this is about is that Lena and Maruja are upstairs working their ass while you are here playing the fool. I’ve been seeing it all this time”.

“All this time? You haven’t even been here to see me at all” I replied, raising my voice a well.

“I’ve seen enough. I have to check after you because your job is not good at all!”

Well, well, so now I was not only working for something I didn’t sign up for, but I was also doing it wrong. He had crossed a line.

We started screaming at this point. I complained about his misleading advert, my lack of free days and his absence, while he kept interrupting me and laughing at my arguments. Lena tried to intervene at some point to support me, but The Manager shut her up and sent her away. Our voices were so loud that even the guests in the kitchen started to peek and see what was going on. However, we reached at breaking point:

“It is highly unprofessional to be talking on your phone while you are working!” He screamed at me.

“No, what it’s highly unprofessional is getting yourself so drunk that you can’t lift your head out of bed when you have 20 guests waiting for you to do your job”.

Yup, I have no filter sometimes.

“You are only making your case worse” The Manager said at last. “Just think about your attitude and change it if you want to come back here on Monday”.

“I don’t want to come back here at all” I said at last before heading to my room and pack my stuff.

So we meet again, Edinburgh

Lena and Maruja came to the room while I was closing my luggage. I didn’t need to tell them, they’ve heard everything. They didn’t want me to go, but I felt it was the right thing. Of course, it’d cost me extra to stay in Edinburgh, but I didn’t care. Lena hugged me goodbye and that was when I started crying and I couldn’t stop for most of the bus ride. Yes, I admit it.

It wasn’t really the fight with The Manager. Of course, it had been upsetting, but it was a bit more than that. I guessed it had finally hit me that I was alone in the other side of the world, folding sheets and screaming to a man who wanted to force me to cumbia dance. True, I have met wonderful people on the journey, but, somehow, I felt very lonely at that point.

I called my mum from my bus seat (god bless Scottish WiFi, it’s everywhere!) and, with those inexplicable mum powers, she made me feel instantly better. She told me that it was harsh to hear, but The Manager was just the first arse I would encounter on my trip, so I should see the fight as part of the adventure.

I arrived to Edinburgh feeling a lot better and enjoyed a delightful trip to the Highlands (I’ll post about it in the next days). After everything, my mum was right. Although being kicked out of my first experience abroad was not particularly fun, it sure made a great story.