Guests

This is for my dad.

Guests: Yes, they are the sole purpose of this, or any, hotel. I guess I haven't mentioned much about them. Let me tell you a few little juicy titbits of information about this strange and exotic species.

Most of these facts I have gleaned whilst cleaning their rooms. Which is unfortunate.

There are a lot of guests at the moment. I think a lot of them are here on some kind of christian-based conference. They have seminars in the lounge room and they snaffle up the cake from the 'Kaffee und Kuchen' table at afternoon tea. They are mostly between 50 and 90 years old, which makes them the ideal inhabitants for Bad Gastein.

All of them are friendly, I think. They smile every morning and say 'Guten Morgen!' even when it's not morning. Sometimes they stop to chat in the hallway when I am standing over a vacuum cleaner and it's never a conversation that requires me giving an answer. I just nod and smile when they smile, laugh when they laugh. When they say 'Danke', I say 'Bitte' and that's about all you need to know around here (unless someone is specifying how many prawns they want picked out of the risotto...)

One old lady goes for walks at night past bedtime, when I am out running. (avoiding the heat of daytime)
I use the term 'bedtime' loosely because honestly, most of these guests don't have a bedtime... I'm not sure how old people can stay up late and keep themselves entertained around here, but they do, even after I have gone to bed out of sheer boredom.

They sing grace about 3 times before every meal, from what I can make out. In German. With an electric harp.
I stare at their feet curiously everytime I walk past the lounge/meeting room. Everything else is obscured by the netting over the glass.

Guests don't know how lucky they have it. Their rooms get vacuumed every day whether they are there or not. Their windows get scrubbed - inside and out. Every shelf inside the wardrobe gets wiped down, and even the top of the wardrobe (out of reach of any human being) is scrubbed down too. Just incase. Their beds get made. Chocolates get put on the pillows. Their pyjamas get folded. Their shoes get lined up. Their filthy toilet gets disinfected by a gagging Amy.

I have to be honest, it's hard not to get annoyed when someone freshly stinks out your toilet before you have even finished cleaning the bathroom.

There are other guests too. I learn about them by accident when I clean their rooms. Not that I want to know most of the things I find out. There are some questions that are better left unasked ('how did your toilet bowl get dark orange?' or 'why does your rubbish bin smell like urine?' or 'is this a cup of vomit next to your sink? or what? its been here 3 days now')

These little treasures may pop up amongst piles of raw tobacco on the carpet, or maybe a shower full of grass.

Some guests are very materialistic. I know this because they bring all their worldly possesions to the hotel. Maybe an entire crate of museli bars, and literally they have covered the whole desk and shelves with books. Twelve pairs of shoes lined up against the wall. I kid you not.

Most of the older people keep bowls of fruit and sweets in their room, which I don't think they eat, and makes me quite jealous.

Younger people seem to stock up on cartons of juice, snicker bars, ticktacks, wine, pepsi and lollies before they come to Bad Gastein. Like all the healthiness of a health-spa-hotel would be too much.

Whenever one of the guests figures out I can't speak German, what do they do? Nothing. They speak German to me still. I like it.

One guest told me the German ecomony is going under in about 20 years and that when that happens he's moving to New Zealand, so he was very happy to meet a real kiwi.

Most guests are here on a so-called health-kick but the medicine-cup in their room, propped up against a bottle of port, makes me realise the fine line between health-spa-resort and just plain spa-resort.

When it comes down to it, all anybody wants in life is to have a little fun and be well taken care of.