Long distance lovers

This week has been the Dave Matthews Band week. Supposedly the band were playing only 4 gigs in europe this tour so people came from miles around to hear them. We had people from Norway, Israel and all over! They must be a good band live to come so far!!

The bread and jam is still going down well, this week kindly supplemented by a German group who had bought far too many yogurts, so when they were leaving, everyone else benefitted.

The wireless has resulted in lots of people sitting around reception with headphones, surfing for hours! They're not going to make friends like that! I think I will have to impose a limit... 20 minutes surfing, 20 minutes chatting... or something ;-)

The sunny weather is back... off to the beach I think :)

Brown bread and jam

We've changed the breakfasts at Isaacs. It used to be tea/coffee and a muffin, now its irish brown bread and jam. Yummo. The downside of this is that I have eaten enough bread and jam to feed a small country in the last week! Oh well its healthy so I'll survive!

And thats not the only exciting news in the hostel. The reception has been transformed in to a veritable space ship and we now have joined the 21st century and have gone wireless and best thing is its free for people staying here!! Yay! But who knew there were some many flashpackers staying here! Cute little macbooks have materialised from no where, where were these hiding in the days before wireless?

Good news the sun has returned! Good job...that rain was ruining my 'do'!

Socially Innovative!

Some hunky members of staff ;-)

Last week was the week of the Young Social Innovators. This resulted is lots of socially responsible youngsters staying with us!! Seems like a great programme... they had nothing as fancy as that in my day!

The other day I was reminded of how full service Isaacs and our sister hostel Jacobs are. I got a call on reception from a guest staying in the adjacent hotel which went something like this:

Guest: Hello, is that the hostel?
Issie: Yes it is!
Guest: I'm staying in the hotel for the weekend and I sprained my ankle and I was wondering whether you had any crutches.
Issie: Eh... this is the hostel...as is hostel
Guest: Yeah, so do you have any crutches?
Issie: Hostel.... not hospital?!??!
Guest: Yes I know, the hostel.

Very confused by the guest's determination that it was normal to assume that a hostel would have crutches, I wondered whether I had missed a section in the staff handbook on our medical supplies closet so I put her on hold and asked a manager. And would you believe it, we did have a pair of crutches in Jacobs. Now I know Jacobs is the fancier big sister of Isaacs, but I was very impressed that they had crutches in a cupboard somewhere just in case. Now that's service for you! Anyway the guest was happy and sent one of her mates to collect them!

The weather has turned a bit this week with a few heavy rain showers :( I knew the tropical weather couldn't last. Ah well hopefully it will turn back around again. I will keep you posted!

Orange Craze!

Dutch hostellers gave us great entertainment this week.

It started early in the week when Guido from the Netherlands checked in with me. He was carrying a guitar so I asked him would he do a gig for us that night. He agreed and in return got a discount on his stay. We're all in favour of musicians in the hostel and frequently have guests playing in the evenings. It can be a bit of a risk sometimes... you can imagine, people saying they are musicians and ending up performing with some spoons and out of tune singing.... no better way to clear a hostel, than with a performance like that!

Thankfully Guido was brilliant and serenaded us for nearly two hours with all the classics. He even got a bit of a sing song going. It certainly made the end of my shift pass very quickly! We liked him so much we asked him to play again the next night, so everyone was happy :)

Monday was Queensday in the Netherlands. From what I gleamed from the orange covered dutch guests, its something of a national holiday in Holland, celebrating funnily enough the Queens birthday. Just an excuse to wear orange and party by the looks of things but correct me if I'm wrong!

Sun is still shining like a mad thing. Those in the know say it will rain a little tomorrow (good to keep the grass green) but then the sun will be back. Time to hit the beach I think!