The key to my suffering

---

September is here. The tourists are gone, the hostels have died down, and most of my cohorts are now closer to my age (everyone else is back in school. Suckers). Things are now proceeding as much more of a 'do what I feel' scenario. I typically don't even have to book my hostels until the day before. It's nice.

On the other hand, a whole bunch of those off-season annoyances have popped back up: nothing ever being open, people constantly hounding me for sales, and everyone else generally being more perturbed and annoyed by tourists. That last one might just be my current proximity. Who knows?

So where was I?

Ahh, Hvar. Going back two weeks, I had a blast there. Harry, Matt, Roz, Lucy, and I rented a boat and toured the nearby islands. Kind of a unique feeling being in a small motorboat in the middle of the Adriatic. I was designated "captain" because I had the most outboard experience. The guy said to me, "You probably shouldn't drink too much as captain." "Of course not," I said. Seven beers later we pulled into Carpe Diem, the giant club situated on a nearby island. Beers were 7 Canadian bucks a piece. No thanks. We lounged with our own beers. Got back to Hvar at sundown and partied the night away on island. My last day there was a doozy. The next day was a doozy of a different sort.

After another night relaxing in Split I hopped a bus to Dubrovnik. Touristy, but beautiful. The old town is walled in like a fortress. Even cooler than the one in York. It cost money to walk the wall, so at first I wasn't sold. But then I was. And...totally worth it. You get some amazing views. One musn't go to Dubrovnik without doing it.

On the downside, my hostel was a bitch. First of all, it was like a fifteen minute drive to the old town, and the bus station. I had been trying to call them for like two days to arrange a pick-up, as it was supposed to be included. No one ever answered me, so I was forced to take a cab there. As soon as I walked in I complained about this and the hostel offered me free transportation to the old town for the rest of my stay. Ok, fine.

The morning I was set to leave I was all packed and on my way out the door, and . . . my key for the door wouldn't work in the lock. I was subsequently locked into my room and, after a few unanswered cries for help, ended up breaking the key trying to get the door open. I eventually got help to come and they got the door open after half an hour of fiddling with a screwdriver. Then . . .

. . . they charged me 40 euros for the broken key.

"Are you kidding me?" They seemed to be under the illusion that I had simply gone up to the lock and just cranked the key till it broke. I tried to explain that I was locked in long before I broke it. A bit of language barrier, with a bit of stupidity, and they could not comprehend this.

I don't have too many criteria when I go to a hostel, but one of them is that I have to be able to get out of my room. I begrudgingly paid the money, but not without assuring them that their manager would be receiving an angry email demanding my money back. A couple days later I wrote that very email, claiming that I would give them the worst of worst reviews if they didn't give me my money. I said he had 48 hours to respond before I wrote the review (which, if you know the hostel system, would have been far more costly to them than 40 euros). He responded finally when I wrote again saying that I was two hours from writing it. He claimed that it was not the key that I had to pay for, but the labour for fixing the lock. Screw that, the lock was broken before I even touched it. We exchanged nasty emails for a couple of days to no avail until I finally got fed up and finally wrote a review that brought their average down considerably. Today, it still sits as their prominent review on hostelworld.

Just yesterday I received an email from the owner, claiming that he would pay me back if I agreed to take the review down. That's right, I can play dirty. Those of you who know me well know that I'm not completely unreasonable when it comes to money, even when I'm travelling. I'll only do something if I KNOW I'm in the right. And in this case, I damn well was.

Moving on, I hit up Bosnia next. I feel that a place like that deserves its own entry, so I'll stop for now and pick it up later (this entry has been a ramble anyway).

---