Quite Random

They also do shoes

I only got to Barcelona about three hours ago, and got the taxi across town from the bus station before getting dropped off to wander my way through a few of the back alleys of El Raval. The alleys are narrow, the buildings close enough to each other on either side that it feels like people could pass stuff to each other across the alley if they wanted. This in contrast to the wide, wide avenues of Las Ramblas and Paseo de Gracia.

I was relieved to find Casa Camper round a corner, having cancelled my booking with the (apparently) busy and lively Hostel Kabul to come here. I´m so very, very glad I did. I don´t have a huge amount of experience of decent hotels, usually opting for cheap options with triangular bits of card on top of the TV advertising naff film premiers, so I don´t have much of a frame of reference, but this is the most incredible place I have ever stayed in. And I´ve only been here three hours. The hostel experience has its merits, but I have been sucked right in by this place.

There´s minimalist, quirky design, extensive use of recycled materials and a focus on sustainability, free food and drinks 24 hours a day from the kitchen, and I have a separate bedroom and mini lounge on opposite sides of the corridor. The bedroom has the widest bed I have ever seen, hooks everywhere to hang things from, and a flat screen TV hanging on the wall. The bathroom has the best wetroom shower I have ever used bar none, and looks out onto a wall dressed from top to bottom in huge potted aspidistras, in a perfectly symmetrical arrangement five floors high. The lounge, with another flat screen TV, looks out onto Carrer Elisabet and has a comfy sofa and a hammock. This place isn´t cheap, but I keep expecting someone to tell me the rate I paid was a joke, and I had better cough up a few hundred extra Euros.

To quote a reviewer of Casa Camper on Tripadvisor.com, I am in love.

The strange thing? Camper, who run this place, are basically a shoe company. Imagine Clarks setting up the best hotel you´ve ever stayed in? Mmm.

Tomorrow, I´m heading out to see Barcelona. Yes. Must… leave… the… hotel.

Hotel or Hostel?

I’m off to Spain this Sunday, starting off with four days in Barcelona. Do I:

• Stay in a hotel, where I can crash, chill out in peace, snore to my heart’s content, and enjoy a shower all to myself, but possibly have less fun
• Stay in a hostel, where I will feel bad about keeping my dormmates awake with my snoring, may have to try and sleep despite someone else snoring, be ignored by moody guitar-playing Israelis, share a coin-operated shower with forty other people, but probably have more fun

?

Small minded people

They know who they are. They’re all over the place. Nothing positive to offer, ignorant, jealous, whingey, opinionated and rude. The workplace really is a shelter for these people, with their

RUDE CRITICAL EMAILS TYPED IN CAPITALS (OFTEN WITH SPELLING ERRROS),

their negativity, and the questions they feel they have to ask, which do nothing more than demonstrate how ignorant they are and how important they think they are, the equivalent of beating their chest for all to see. Many of these people have been hiding away for several years, taking their pay, and all for doing little more than being the little black cloud over the heads of anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths. Ask them for a solution – they won’t have one. Don’t even ask them for a problem – they’re happy to help.

You know the kind of person I mean.

Interesting clipping

Toy here.