I'd love to hear them, any time, jujube. Motel, hotel, B&B, jail cell, who cares? Wherever you spent the night. Ha!
As far as strange youth hostels go, I've stayed in the cell of a former jail and a WWII underground bunker in Berlin.
Hotels? I stayed in a small hotel in Copenhagen where the owner came in the bathroom while I was showering, stuck his head in the shower and asked if I needed my back scrubbed. I guess that was included with the room, huh? I stayed in a pension in Salzburg where I had to walk through someone else's bedroom to get to ours (awwwwkward, because they were guys....sleeping au natural). I stayed in a hotel in the redlight district of Amsterdam which turned out....no surprise....to be a redlight hotel (whole lotta stomping around going on outside up and down the stairs.....) A Salvation Army hotel in Rome. We got breakfast, but we had to pray for it first. Another time in Rome, a convent (we didn't have to pray for our breakfast there, just pay.....)
B&B? The strangest one was on Maui at a Buddhist retreat center. Sounded great from the brochure...."hot tub, tasteful oriental décor, comfortable futon, waterfall a short walk away, delicious tropical breakfast on the breakfast lanai" (this was pre-internet, so no way to check out reviews).
We drove up a one lane mountain road in pitch dark until we stumbled on the retreat center. One house had a light on so we went to that. On the door was a piece of paper that said "Mr. & Mrs. ______, take the room to the right." So we did. It had an old mattress on the floor, no sheets, no linens. There was a door that didn't lock and two windows with no curtains, one which looked into the hall for some reason. We stood there, trying to decide what to do when a man (tall, skinny, blonde dreadlocks....definitely not what I was expecting) walks into the room, accompanied by a small naked boy who immediately ran over to my suitcase, unzipped it and started throwing clothes out. The man handed me a pile of clean but threadbare sheets and towels and carefully explained to the toddler that Mr. and Mrs. _________ hadn't given him
permission to touch their things and he would have to wait for
permission. I hope I didn't warp his tender psyche but
permission was not granted. I would have liked to warp his naked little behind (and Dad's, too).
I asked about the hot tub. What hot tub? The hot tub in the brochure. What brochure? This one. Oh, THAT brochure. Nope, no hot tub. Not much of a surprise, but there was no path to the waterfall, either. In fact, there was no waterfall. Then we get to the tropical breakfast (he pointed out the refrigerator at the end of the hall, where I could find white bread, margarine and jelly that I could toast IF the toaster was working) and eat on the breakfast lanai, which consisted of a small splintery porch with two rusty chairs and a 3-legged table, equally rusty. OH, and there wasn't any hot water, either, and the shower was outside. If the Buddhists had anything to do with that place, well....I'm the Dalai Lama.
So, unwilling to make the trip back down the mountain in the dark, we made up the.. uh...futon......repacked our suitcase, and slept in our clothes. At first light, we snuck out and drove down to Lahaina where we had a blissful stay at the decidedly funky but totally delightful Pioneer Inn for the rest of our stay.
After that, my late husband started twitching uncontrollably whenever I made the merest reference to staying in a B&B.
Motel? In Oregon, way high on a bluff over the Columbia River, a young couple had bought a closed-down motel and refurbed it into a classic 1950's/60's schtick. I'm talking turquoise bucket chairs, kidney shaped coffee tables, fantastic fabrics, black-and-white old TV's. It was a blast from the past.
