World Travel Guide Online

Oxford – The International Beers

After the false fire alarm incident, life settled into a routine at Kensington Hotel. After three months in the job I felt confident in the reception role. But occasionally I required assistance, such as when a group of 80 German students turned up at 10:30 one night. They had a series of dorm rooms booked, but the number of males and females that actually showed up were completely different to the booking they had made. This was significant because school groups stayed in single sex dorms. The hotel was near its capacity and it was a nightmare trying to reallocate the rooms so I decided I needed some help. Remembering Cornelia’s drunken performance last time I had asked her for help at night, I decided to call Louise instead. I should have called Cornelia. Louise arrived in reception shortly after my call in the foulest, darkest mood I had ever seen her in, and I’d seen some pearlers in my three months.

“Who the fuck is in charge here?!” She screamed at the assembled group.

A middle aged male teacher came forward timidly, as though he was about to receive a jail sentence.

Cornelia started to shout at him. “How dare you not know the sexes of your students. I spent three miserable hours working out the room allocations for your group!” She berated him mercilessly in a loud voice and using aggressive hand movements. The teacher merely trembled and said nothing. I don’t know if he understood what she was actually saying, just that it was unpleasant for all involved.

The students, who were all standing in reception with arms crossed, looked to be about 16 years old, with an attitude to match. The atmosphere very quickly turned from one of nervousness to anger. A long haired male student suddenly called out from the back of the group. “Why don’t you just give us our room keys and leave us alone?”

Louise registered shock at this, but quickly turned to scream at everyone. Her face turned red as she moved into full swing.

“You are not very nice, now give us our keys and go back to your bed,” the same student calmly stated. There was murmured agreement from some of the other student and even some of the teachers.

Louise stopped yelling and looked like she was going to cry. Instead she said, “You can all just stand there and wait until I’ve sorted this.” And with that she stormed to into the back office and slammed the door, presumably to reallocate the rooms.

The assembled group gasped and then settled down to glare at me. I looked back with my trademark inane grin, wishing I was anywhere but here. The minutes ticked by. Someone coughed. I prayed that the earth would swallow me up. I was standing there, feeling very small and slightly scared when it suddenly came to me – it was time for me to move on.

I was going to resign from the Kensington Hotel. I had enjoyed my time in the hotel, and the staff were interesting and wonderful. I would especially miss Kate, the other receptionist, but she was heading home to Australia to commence her university studies anyway. So the next morning, while Cornelia and Louise were dealing with the repercussions of having pissed off 80 hotel guests, I informed them of my resignation. The timing was pretty bad, but they took it pretty well. They just said “fair enough, where are you off to?” I guess they had come to expect a high turnover when they employed backpackers. They seemed a bit dismayed when Kate chose to finish up at the same time as me, but good luck was restored when Hedia visited the hotel one day. Her new tutoring job hadn’t been as great as she had hoped, so she offered to return to her old reception job.

Five days after my resignation I farewelled Kate, Hedia, Louise, Cornelia, Glenn, Osei, Boateng, Nabilah, Katherine and the rest of the chambermaids and left Kensington Hotel. I felt melancholy as I walked up Queensway for what was probably going to be my last time as a London/Bayswater ‘local’. But, I mused, it was much better to be melancholy at leaving a memorable place than relieved at leaving a hell hole. This year was about travel, freedom and new experiences for me. My planned trip in Turkey, Greece & Ireland and my studies in Canada were getting closer and I wanted to spend time in other areas of England before then. A friend back home had once told me how much she loved English university towns, with their beautiful buildings and young, vibrant population. The two that immediately came to mind for me were Oxford and Cambridge so I decided that I check them both out and maybe look for a bar job.

Oxford

After a short tube ride and coach trip, I arrived in wet and miserable conditions in Oxford. I was booked to stay in a hostel that was a short local bus ride out of town. The bus ride wasn’t so bad, but the walk laden with backpack up the hill was. After all that London walking, a measly hill was bothering me! I planned to do a six day tramp in the Yorkshire Dales in August and realised that walking with a backpack was something I would need to get more used to.

I checked into the hostel and discovered that my dorm room housed 15 beds, a new record for me. After dropping my bags off I returned to Oxford to have a look around. I had visited Oxford in my childhood so it all seemed vaguely familiar. I wandered the streets in the rain, past endless impressive colleges and gradually meandered to a place I dearly wanted to see – Blackwell’s Bookstore. My guide book stated that it was the fourth biggest book store in the world, which was quite big enough for me. I spent a rather large amount of time in there, gratifying my errr… book shop fetish. At the end, deciding that I just had to purchase something, I bought a Ken Follett thriller. Not perhaps the most esteemed intellectual purchase, but bloody great for reading on public transport and on quiet hostel evenings.

I soon returned to the hostel for just that, a quiet hostel evening. After cooking a simple, yet tasty meal of pasta, I retired to the lounge to read my new novel. It was going to be such a relaxing, civilised evening for me. I glanced up every now and then as people entered and left the lounge room. An Indian guy walked in carrying a laptop, and after searching the room, sat in a chair opposite me. I saw why he had chosen that particular chair; there was a power point next to it. He plugged his laptop in and commenced typing. I watched this with interest. It seemed rare for a backpacker’s hostel to be hosting such a scene. He looked up and caught me smiling at him. But instead of smiling back, he glared at me and returned to his work. Really friendly guy, I thought. I returned to my book and continued to read.

Half an hour later, I was torn from my book when I heard swearing. The Indian was holding the power pack on the laptop and banging the keyboard. He saw me watching and said, “that damn power point wasn’t working and now I’ve run out of battery.” He became visibly upset. “I’ve bloody lost all the work I did tonight.”

I felt for him; it really was terrible for him to have wasted all that time. I didn’t know what else to say to him so I said, “it’s moments like this that you need a beer in your hands.” I grinned good naturedly at him. He glared at me again, got up and left the room, muttering to himself. I didn’t feel sorry for him anymore; it served him right, the miserable killjoy.

I returned to my book reading and was at a particularly exciting section, when I heard someone clear their throat. The Indian guy standing in front of me. “Well, there’s an off-license just up the road, let’s go get that beer then.”

I studied him closely and tried to work out his mood. He stared back and didn’t give it away. I felt intrigued by this bad tempered killjoy, so I took the only possible option available to me; I got up and walked with him to the beer store. Once on the road, he visibly relaxed and held out his hand. “My name’s Gavin.” We shook hands. “Sorry about that before, I am a journalist for an academic magazine and I am meant to submit in two days, so losing my work was a real setback for me. But stuff it, you’re right, it’s a good time to get a beer, and I’m buying.”

‘Don’t judge books by their covers’ the saying goes. The miserable killjoy was quickly becoming more human to me. As we walked to the store, Gavin explained that he was based in London, but he travelled often and was currently conducting research for an article in one of the Oxford libraries, and would be interviewing some professor tomorrow. He received a fixed allowance for accommodation, so chose to stay in hostels to make a little extra cash.

When we reached the store, we had difficulty in choosing a brand of beer as there was a wide range of bottles in view. I had a suggestion. “Let’s get a range of international beers, Gavin; a sampler if you will.”

He looked dismissive, but simply said, “how many beers can you drink tonight, Dave?”

I pondered for a moment. “Maybe two or three.”

Gavin responded to this by carefully placing two of each type of beer into the shopping basket hooked over his elbow. I watched with amusement. There were 24 beers there. I wondered what I was getting myself into and concluded that this night was headed for a much more interesting time than the reading of my novel. Gavin purchased the beers and patted me on the back. “Courtesy of the magazine, Dave.” The killjoy had won me over; I think I was going to like him.

We returned to the hostel and took seats in the kitchen. I don’t think we were allowed to actually drink in the hostel but we weren’t about to ask and find out whether this was true or not. I got to know Gavin a lot better as the evening progressed. He had recently had a bad breakup when living in India and so had taken this job in England to escape his past. He was in quite a philosophical mood. I like nothing better than to philosophise when I drink alcohol so the conversation was deep, rich and passionate. But as our drinking journey around the world hit full swing, our moods started to soar with the joy of the moment.

We must have had a friendly aura about us, as a seemingly endless parade of hostellers visited us that night. Most people just said hello, but several ended up joining our club. Kenny the Korean was first. He spoke little English but as the night wore on, he seemed to find our antics hilarious. Then there was Carla – a 45 year old South African physiotherapist who had been to over 100 countries in her lifetime, Imre – a shy Hungarian bank teller, Adrian – a well spoken Welshman who looked like a royal, and Stephanie – an attractive German girl in Oxford to do an English course. Gavin and I were getting plastered by this stage and after a wordless conference, we went to the fridge and got beers out for everyone. Carla produced some crisps, Stephanie some chocolate and ‘voila’, a party was in full swing. Everyone actually seemed excited by the idea of the ‘international beers’ and we began a cheerful debate on the merits of each beer, taste-testing them as we went.

Carla talked about the favourite places she had seen in the world, Adrian wanted to talk about Rugby, the game of the Gods in his opinion, Imre looked on shyly, Kenny tried to understand what we were saying and laughed loudly whenever anyone else smiled, Gavin drank through the beers at twice the pace to anyone else and I discovered that Stephanie already spoke very good English.

The ‘international beer tasting meet’ gradually wound to a close after 1am when someone gathered that all seven of us had to check out tomorrow by 10am. Gavin and I stayed behind and bade everyone good night. Soon it was just the two of us again.

Gavin and I

Gavin looked at me with wavering eyes. “I’m hungry, Dave. Do you want something to eat?” Without waiting for a reply he got up and prowled alongside the kitchen bench, which ran the length of the room. I was wondering what he was doing when he suddenly produced some eggs and rashers of bacon. I sat and sipped my beer (from Belgium) as he found a frying pan and stove and began frantically cooking away. In no time at all we were having a meal of eggs and bacon at 1:30 am, completely drunk. And it tasted delicious. As I finished the meal and sat back in contentment I asked him a simple question. “Where did you buy the eggs and bacon from?”

He looked at me with a mischievous smile, “I didn’t buy them mate, I just found them under the bench.” He started to giggle. “You’re never hungry when you’re in a youth hostel.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “That’s theft!” I stood up and dramatically pointed at him and exclaimed, “you’re a thief, Gavin, a thief!” I stood there, shaking my finger at him. His giggles stooped abruptly and he looked crestfallen. I sat down and sipped on my beer and a weird feeling welled up inside me. A sound came out of my mouth, quietly at first and then colossal laughter took hold and swept me away. Gavin resumed his giggling and we sat there together, laughing uncontrollably for an unhealthily long time.

We eventually settled down and calmly reflected on the night, sipping on our beers. I was drunk, but by the looks of Gavin’s posture, he was drunker. Time ticked by and I realised that we would be paying for this tomorrow. Gavin finished the last of his beer and started to sing. I decided to deal with tomorrow when it came and heartily joined in. I clumsily cleaned up the kitchen as Gavin continued to sing. I decided it was time for bed.

As we went up the stairs to the room, Gavin started to sing “Celebrate Good Times C’MON!” A corny choice but a classic, I guess. We were outside several dorm rooms by now, so I told Gavin that he needed to stop his singing.

“Why do we have to be so quiet, Dave? We should be celebrating.”

“Celebrating what?”

“Life Dave, we should be celebrating life. Here we are, strangers before tonight, and would be strangers still if my laptop hadn’t died. But now we are friends. So celebrate and sing with me.”

So I did. Neither of us knew all the words to the song, but we soldiered on anyway.

But, drunk as I was, I knew that the fun couldn’t last long at this volume. We were singing just outside rooms full of sleeping people and it didn’t help that Gavin kept suggesting that we knock on doors to get everyone to join in the celebrations.

Soon enough, a nearby door opened and an attractive looking girl walked out in her pyjamas. I groaned inwardly, I was not the best at confrontation, especially when I was very clearly in the wrong and the opponent was attractive. I winced and waited for the torrent of abuse that was about to come. But it didn’t happen. Instead she informed us that she actually knew all the words to ‘Celebrate Good Times’ and proceeded to sing in a soft voice. Gavin and I looked at each other quizzically, then doggedly joined in. Gavin was enthusiastic, head faced skyward as he crooned away, but the alcohol was wearing off me now and I was feeling foolish and inconsiderate. We all finished the song at different times and the girl (Krista was her name), smiled in a friendly way and calmly suggested that we might want to head off to bed now that we knew the words. I smiled apologetically and agreed with her, quickly shepherding Gavin to our darkened dorm room.

I valiantly tried to suppress his giggles as we tried to find out beds amongst the other 13 occupants. I cringed as he tripped over some shoes and calmly pronounced to the room “over I go!” before falling in a tangled heap. Not that I could see him. In hindsight I am amazed that none of the other 13 occupants said anything to us, they all clearly were woken by our noise as the symphony of snoring had stopped when we stumbled into the room and Gavin started to giggle. Maybe they were all seasoned hostellers and realised that this was just the hostelling life. We found our beds and passed out immediately.

I awoke the next day at 9:50. Everyone was gone; everyone except for Gavin who was lying diagonally across his bed, the wrong way around, with his feet on his pillow. I felt like crap, the room was spinning and something had crawled into my mouth and died during the night, but I looked positively healthy compared to Gavin. After I woke him, he groaned and whispered to me, “Why did we do that?”

“Because we wanted to celebrate life and go on a beer journey around the world,” I replied.

He stood up and surveyed me with bloodshot eyes. “Well, the beers all tasted the bloody same and I want to die.” With that he started to pack his things.

At 10:15 we checked out of the hostel. The kindly manager oddly commented that several of the other guests had complained this morning that two guys had been up late singing. Gavin showed a quick wit when he immediately agreed with him, and said, “yes, they were quite loud chaps.” But judging by our bloodshot eyes, late check out and aversion to bright lights, the manager surely knew it was us.

Oxford

We got the bus into town, which seemed to be also the school bus, not talking much. Gavin had an interview to conduct with the Oxford professor but looked like he was about to vomit. We reached the town and quietly swapped addresses and shook hands. Gavin then unsteadily walked off to fudge his way through his interview, laptop in tow. I sat down to wait for the next bus to Cambridge. As I waited, I reflected on what had happened last night. It seemed to encapsulate a good lesson to learn in life. I had not liked Gavin at all when I first met him last night, yet I had had one of the best nights of my life. The moral of the night, it seemed, was to always keep an open mind when travelling and never refuse a free beer from a stranger. The night described had been a lively one, but I realised that it had happened all over the world for me in my travels. In many ways, I had had this night 100 times before. And it wasn’t at all about consuming vast amounts of alcohol, it was about sharing a night with new friends from seven different countries, learning about each other, laughing together and having an all out great time. Perhaps this was why I felt so addicted to the traveller’s life.