Hostel @ MindSay

O.k. I don't know where to even begin.....

 

My Hats off to Eli Roth.

 

First let me start with my experience with the movie.  I don't know all the ins and outs of movies as far as how they work and who does what or whatever.  I usually base my viewing of movies on the trailer or what people have said about the movie.  I do watch independent movies because some are really good and you don't know for sure unless you watch them.  I saw the previews for the this movie and it looked like a movie I'd want to see as a horror buff but then I saw presented by Quentin Tarantino I thought "no way" this movie is going to rock. 

 

When the movie came out I couldn't wait to see it.  I left there like "whoah" that blows my mind ...a place where people pay to kill other people.  So I'm driving home and I'm thinking about the movie because it still blew me away that it was a place where people paid to kill people.  I must say I didn't see it coming at all and I was thinking what the hell is this place?  Are they going to sell their organs? What do they do here? Why are they doing this to these people?  Then the fact it turns out that people we paying someone to kill other people...That was f'in brilliant!  The concept, no one had ever done a movie about that or thought about that.

 

So I'm thinking back on the movie and I'm like, I have to tell my best friend Beth about this movie its going to f'in blow her mind.  She has to go see this movie.  To me for me it was like the Sixth Sense I couldn't stop talking about it.  So of course I bought the movie when it came out and watched it again and I loved the second one equally.  I recently bought the second dvd which when I was viewing it I pressed for the subtitles to come on because I didn't understand when someone said something and when I pressed for the subtitles I saw all this other stuff you could view and decided to watch it after the movie was over and what I realized after I put on the subtitles that there was alot of stuff being said in the background you just make out as chitter chatter but it was actually the actors talking and a bunch of other dialogue I had originally missed so it made the movie that much better for me as if that was possible.  So when the movie was over I started it back to the beginning with subtitles to see what I missed from the beginning making me love the movie that much more.  So when the movie was over I wanted to know everything about it and listened to the interview and saw the gag reels and listened to his commentary.

 

And I'm like are you f'in serious this was this guys first movie to write.  This guy is a f'in genius.  Kind of like Eminem.  I know you may not like Eminems' music but you have to say he was a f'in genius.  His lyrics, he could wrap and here is this white rapper saying these things.  He was genius in representing how the younger generation feels sometimes, they don't talk about it but they feel those feelings.  But anyway back to the movie.  So he made this movie on $3 million dollars unbelieveable.  It had the quality and feel of a big movie.  These actors were just genius, the fact that he just happened or thought about including these actors and they fit so perfectly to the charactar was unremarkable.  So I'm listening about his intentions for the movie and how he wanted the audience to feel and so I went back and watched the movie again and it worked perfectly.  I didn't realize it but his intentions were for us to really like Josh and see the world through Joshs eyes and really care about Josh and when he was killed off it was a real let down because Paxton was a jerk and Oli was just along for the ride.  Then you find yourself feeling sorry for this Jerk when he realizes hes all along and things are getting really weird.  I liked how Eli kind of drew you to the softer side of Paxton when they were walking down the street talking about the drowning it made Paxton alot more likeable before he killed off Josh.  Eli just thought of everything. 

 

So anyway I love his political views you should listen to them I agree and they make alot of sense and the movie does coincide with politics and money and greed.  Where ultimately the rich can't get rich enough, they are bored and ultimately they have all the power and use it in violence.

 

The fact that some of the people who stood in the movie but weren't actors they had a role on the set but they fit perfectly in that role.  All so genius.

 

So anyway I think there should be a Hostel 3 I want one.  This time I think Beth should come back for them.  Shes smart, she has a ton of money and she is the type of person that would have to put an end to this.  But how does she go about doing it if they have their hands in everything?  So how is she going to put an end to this and go into how the factory operates, how do they get their clients?, how come all these people are involved but no one important not involved hasn't found out?  Eli your a genius you can do it. 

Hi,

 

Does anyone know of any good hostels in the city centre of Vienna? A.k.a. close to the main attractions. I'm only there for two nights and would like to make the most of it. I don't mind paying a bit more if I can get a place that is available for the nights I'm there and I can walk to the main attractions.

 

Anyone who has any tips, that'd be appreciated.

 

I've booked for everything except accommodation in Vienna.

 

:) thanks

I prepared for my trip to Florence by reading EM Forsters A Room With A View, but the book, however much fun to read, was misleading because it implied there would be rooms to sleep in in Florence. We've had a lot of trouble finding places to stay, with views or otherwise. The original plan was to spend a day in Sienna after Pisa, and then go on to Florence. But Lindsay was supposed to book the hostel in Sienna, and apparently the computer connections aren't too reliable in Mali, so she asked her mother to do it for her from her US computer. Apparently her mom forgot to make the booking, so we decided rather than spend a single night in Sienna, it would be best to go straight to Florence. We showed up without a place to stay, however, and after a quick consultation with the guidebook decided it would be best to go to tourist information in the train station and get a room for the night.

The woman in tourist information took one look at us and said "Cheap cheap cheap?" and we said yes, we needed a place to stay for two people, one night at the cheapest possible rate. She smiled and nodded and made a lot of phonecalls in rapid sucession, speaking in breathless Italian, and finally after several tries found us two hostel beds for the night. We thanked her, and received the map she gave us and made our way through some very unpleasant and unseasonable rain to our hotel room. With the room taken care of, we decided to brave the wet in order to do some sight seeing, and found ourselves outside Saint Croce Church, the church where the hero and heroine of A Room With A View have their first real conversation. We planned to duck our heads in and take a quick peak, but we soon found out that that was impossible.

The church turned out to be the burial sight of Galileo, Machiavelli, Micheangelo and others, though not, interestingly enough of Dante. Dante is buried in Ravenna, but that didn't stop Saint Croce from building a huge garrish monument in honor of the Florentine poet. I've never been a big Dante fan despite slogging my way through three different translations of the Inferno. When I saw his monument I think I understood why. He always looks incredibly dour, as if he was having bad indigestion; I think it comes out in his writing.

The next day we had to move to our hostel that Lindsay had also booked from Mali (the deal was that she would book Florence and Sienna, I would book Venice and Pisa). Rather than head straight to our Hostel, however, we decided to do some early sight seeing, and made it to the Duomo in time to be first in line when it opened. The guidebook was not too enthusiastic about the church, claiming it was "chilly and austere" on the inside, but I enjoyed it immensely. The inside doesn't feel cluttered the way some of these churches can be. After the Duomo we headed across the way to the Baptistry to gaze at Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise," which was obscured by a sea of tourists. I'm short enough, however, that I eventually wrangled  my way to the front, and I'm glad I did, the doors are truly breathtaking.

The Piazza was beginning to get absolutely swamped with tour groups, so we headed back to our hostel to collect our bags and carried them through the wet and cold to the hostel we had booked for the next five nights.

The hostel looked amazing, it was up a steep flight of stairs, but had large windows and wooden floors as well as offering free internet. There were signs all over in broken English reminding guests that "The waisting of the energy was a crime against the enviroment" and other helpful hostel hints. When we got there, however, the woman couldn't find our booking. There was much sturm und drang, and the management was called, while we nervously looked over the reservation and tried to decipher the rapid Italian the receptionist was shouting into the phone. Eventually we realized that the reservation was for May, and we were here in June. The hostel was booked solid all five nights, and we had nowhere to stay. We asked the receptionist if she had any suggestions of places to stay, and she said that as far as she knew the entire city was booked solid. It turns out that the next day, the second of June, was a national holiday, and meaning it was a popular time to visit. She wouldn't let us use the phone, but she was nice enough to let us store our bags while we found a place to stay.

We returned to the street with absolutely no idea of what to do. We found a phone and began to call all of the hostels in the guidebook. All of them were booked solid for the next two nights, but we finally found a place that will take us for the last three nights of our stay. Lindsay went off to find an internet cafe where she could confirm the booking, and I headed in the other direction to find us a bed for the night. My plan was to head to the tourist office, but I realized that the streets on the way to the train station seemed to be lined with wall to wall hotels. I stopped into a few of the cheaper looking ones, all of which seemed to be booked solid for the next two nights (I even encountered a panicky couple whose reservations had also fallen through screaming at an unfortunate receptionist) Finally I found a one star hotel with a single room left. It was little more than a broom cubbard, but breakfast was included, and the room had a TV. Grateful to have a place to stay I headed back to collect both Lindsay and the luggage. I've learned two things from the whole experience--the first is never have anybody make a hotel booking from Mali, and the second is that commercials are more entertaining in Italian.

I have this weird ability to have lucid dreams on random occasions. Lucid dreams are dreams that you realize are just that, dreams, and after you realize what they are, you can take control of them.

Last night The Drummer and I watched Hostel, (again) and I was having nightmares about it. But then I noticed it was a dream.

I turned one of the bad guys hair purple, and made the rest of them stand very still while I stole an RV and drove away.

Of course then I tried to wake up. And every time I thought I was awake I would point my hand at something (like the computer) and be like "turn on!" And of course it would and I'd be disappointed I was still asleep.

The Drummer was so excited when he found out I had these dreams, because apparently, it's a skill. But you can learn how to do it, and make real trees disappear according to some crazy monk.

Anyhow, I have a staff meeting. (Although I am slightly confused by the fact that we haven't even opened yet and already, there is a staff meeting. Maybe it's meant to be motivational.)

p.s. Don't ever watch Hostel. Or do, if you can handle the scariest damn movie on the face of the earth. Eli Roth is one twisted fuck.

Ok, you are all going to be so proud...finally, finally, I got my Paris pics uploaded!  Unfortunately getting a USB cable for my Kodak camera was a little bit more difficult than originally thought, so today I ended up just buying a "SanDisk" that just takes my pics from my memory card and puts them on the computer...it's been a long time coming, that's for sure.  It was fun going back through them, too, re-living the memory a little.  Gosh, I miss Paris...

 

Anyway, I apologize as that some of them I have absolutely no idea what they are (some buildings and such), I just thought they were all French looking and couldn't pass up a picture opportunity. :)  Maybe I'll start with the ones I do know of, and try to re-cap things as I go...(probably going to do this in a couple different entries, you know how my stories tend to go on, and on, and on...lol).

 

I arrived in Paris early Saturday morning (in November).  I had a direct flight from Chicago, and was lucky enough to sleep most of it, so I didn't feel a bit of jet lag as I wandered through the airport, looking for the correct bus to get on to take me to the Metro, which would take me to the hostel we (me and Nick) were supposed to stay in that night.  I was also praying that this particular hostel had room for us that night, too.  The original plan had been that Nick would be in Paris a couple days early in an effort to plan where we were going to stay, but I received an email from him right before I left for the airport in Denver, saying that he was going to be a little late and to find a hostel and email him how to get there.  I literally googled "Paris hostel", found the first one that had an availability Saturday night, emailed Nick the Metro stop, and ran out the door.  Not exactly the calm, relaxed way I had planned to start this vacation, but there wasn't any turning back.

 

I found the right bus, got on the right Metro, and found my way to the right stop.  As I began to wind my way through the endless tunnels to the surface, it began to hit me that I was actually in a foreign country, totally submersed...and at the time, totally alone.  I wasn't really scared, but I had a rush like I've never felt before.  Such a mixture of fear and excitement, it was great!

 

I began the walk to the hostel, only half sure I was going the right way, but knowing that I had all the time in the world to kill so I didn't mind much.  The "10 minute" walk the website claimed, I soon found out, was a bit off.  More like 25-30 minutes when you're carrying bags.  Needless to say I was ecstatic to see a big, bright purple sign claiming the "Peace & Love" hostel was right up the street.  I checked in, (luckily there was still room), drug my bags up to my room, opened the door, and found the smallest room I had ever seen...

                    

                 

 

My bed is the one on the floor with the green bags on it.  There's also a shower in this room...you can't really tell, but it's literally this little cutout in the wall that has a showerhead in it.  The thing was so tiny that I had to open the door to reach to the floor to grab my shampoo and stuff.  Crazy! 

 

After I get settled a bit, I decide to go walk around and see what there was to see.  It was only mid-morning, and Nick wasn't supposed to arrive until that evening, so I had the whole day to kill by myself.  Here are some random pics that I took while walking around the neighborhood near the hostel...

                                

 

 

                                            

 

After walking around for a bit, taking some pics, and having my first French "cafe" (stout stuff!), I headed back to the hostel, in hopes of maybe taking a shower and catching a nap.  I ended up meeting another girl who was staying at the hostel, who was also from Denver!  Go figure, I go all the way to Paris, and the first person I meet is practically a stone throw away from where I live.  We hit it off and since she had been in town a couple days longer, she took it upon herself to show me around a bit.  We went down the street, bought a bottle of wine, and walked around and shopped for the next two hours (probably looking a bit odd too, walking around, drinking out of the bottle, but no one seemed to mind!).  We also stumbled upon a hair salon, and decided that maybe we should get a shampoo and blowdry.  (I had realized the blowdryer I had brought wasn't going to do me much good until Nick came with the adaptor I had sent him earlier.)  It took us a good five minutes to get across what we wanted them to do, but everyone was so good-natured with us, that it turned into being a really good time.  The service was also excellent...I've never got a full-on head massage when getting a shampoo.  It was enough to make me want to go to Paris every month just for that!  Here's a pic of my friend getting hers... 

Finally, we made our way back to the hostel in time to grab a drink and wait for Nick to show up.  It wasn't terribly much longer, when I saw him walk up outside. 

 

I was so excited to see him!  He had been gone for 2 months, and considering we were practically best friends before he left, it had been a hard adjustment having him gone.  (To explain the situation a bit further for those who don't know, we are not a "couple"...merely good friends.)  I introduce him to a few people, I had met, we go upstairs to drop off his stuff, and then begin our venture to the Eiffel Tower.

 

Well, think this is good for the first entry...but wow, it may take more than a couple considering I'm still on the first day!  Good times though...*sigh*...