i left my house in a hostel office

26.april.05: i checked into the hostel, a kind of run down little place not too far from the city centre, but in what people would politely call a "dodgy area." there's a great british word that i chose to use instead: grotty.

the people's friendliness, however, more than made up for the quality of the place, and they let me keep my enormous amounts of luggage locked up in the hostel's office for a whole week, even when i wasn't going to stay there. for no extra charge.

one guy in the front room introduced himself to me as kev and helped me out with my colossal baggage problem.

"you brought your whole house with you, didn't you?" he said with his deep birmingham accent.

we would further reference the boulder of a suitcase as simply, "the house."

kev was a permanent resident of the hostel, because of what he calls "a great place to meet new people." he worked at capital one in nottingham for 9 years and had a room tucked up near the attic, beyond the maze of hallways, doors and staircases that some architect in the victorian era thought was a good idea.

he had time that evening, and wanted to show me around the town, so we went to a few shopping centres, a great little indian restaurant, and the library.

oh, the library.