The Hotel

I alluded to the strangeness of our hotel, The Continental Hotel of Barcelona, on Facebook. I mentioned first that it was all pink. I kid you not, the walls, the bed, the chairs, the curtains, the tables: pink. the only exception was old and kind of gross green carpet that reminded me of the hallways of old apartment buildings. To be transparent, we paid 80 Euros per night for our hotel (including wifi, taxes, breakfast), a steal in a large European city. Rick Steves recommended it, so it has to be good, right?

We were also lured by the promise of a 24-hour free buffet that included an ice cream machine, wine, beer, and other snackums that could potentially save us money. When we got there, we scoped it out, and it was mostly weird. I kind of liked the ice cream machine, but the wine was definitely skunky and the food was probably previously frozen or at least a little old.

The room at first didn't seem that bad, but there were some things that grossed us out. The bathroom had mold on the pipes and the tiles' grout. We found a couple dark hairs on the sheets. And again, I didn't want to walk barefoot on the carpet.

Maybe I'm not the same adventure traveler that I used to be. I remember staying in a hotel in Lamu, Kenya with my good friend David that had a bathroom with no door or ceiling (hilariously awkward for us as a non-romantic duo), bowed mattresses, and concrete floors. To be honest, the same hotel might freak me out now. The lock could've been easily broken, and I read too much about bed bugs in the news to not check my pillows. But the $8/night rate decidedly did not freak me out just two years ago.

Anyway, one episode at this hotel pretty much made up our minds regarding the bad review we plan to give it on Trip Advisor. [Warning: if you're eating, or if you don't like gross stories, you might want to skip this paragraph.] As we were walking down the stairs to exit our hotel, we came upon something disgusting. There was, in the middle of the corridor, a giant pile of shit. Yes, shit. There was a big turd, and a smearing of nastiness surrounding it. There may have been toilet paper too, which is quite hygenic of the pooper considering what they did to the stairs! One flight down, there was a puddle of pee.

Even though we were on our way out, I took the elevator back up (no need to see that twice) and alerted the woman at the desk to the mess. She looked mortified, and as I walked out she picked up the phone to make a phone call. I do believe it was the first she heard of it.

Okay, fine, a gross mess probably by a drunkard in the hallway. But the next day when we came back, IT WAS STILL THERE. It had been at least 12 hours, almost certainly 24! I again, went upstairs and alerted the same woman working the night shift again. She said that they had called someone but they couldn't get a hold of them. This was unfortunately Sunday.

But seriously people. I have had to clean up similar messes at my jobs in housing facilities. It sucks, but with a good pair of gloves and an impromptu face mask, you're solid to do the work that needs to be done. I would've done it for $50, maybe even 30. But this hotel couldn't rally enough to clean up something that made them look like trash.

Hilarious but gross, I will probably remember this for years. It will only be funnier with time.