Two Months In Europe With Lachlan

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This adventure is a collaboration between Chwoka and Schazer. Though we will be trading off posting, all of the updates are written together.

I slide my keycard through the slit and I notice it catches a bit in the middle, so I assume that it's not going to take, and my assumption is confirmed by that tiny red light that flashes three times. Instead of running it through three, four more times I just put my card away and punch in the code onto the keypad (those pill-shaped buttons that are curved on the top gives it away as the CL line, and since it's not reading my card right it seems the hotel has not upgraded from the CL-302 or -402 to the -303 or -403 just yet), but not the code they gave me with the card because I don't remember that one, I just punch in the default manager's code, one-zero-one-zero-nine, figuring they haven't even changed it, and with three flashes of green the door mechanically clicks open. Typical. I grab the handle and step through.

From the other side you can easily tell it's the 303 since it doesn't have another keypad, just a button on the handle. If only I had my tools with me I could fix the code up so not just any bozo with five numbers in his head could waltz on in if he pleased. It's ridiculous. You spend your whole life installing these locks and because hotel management won't get off their asses and set a new code they're easier to pick than the classic cylinder unit you can go at with a bobby pin. That's probably what this place had thirty years ago. From the looks of things, nothing else in this room besides the knob has been replaced in thirty years. I still press the button on the handle though, even though it doesn't really mean anything. I'm halfway tempted to go back around and punch in the keypad-programmer's code to fix their problem for them, but even though it's my room it's not MY room... Although I could always just change it back before I went.

And then again, I could have used their app, but that's garbage, and my phone's likely roaming and low on battery anyway. Funny how you install a new doorknob and instantly add three new entrances to the room. Now's the time when I would throw down my luggage, but I don't have it with me, so I just dump my pockets on the nightstand and get right to the first thing any sensible person should do when they check into a new hotel room.

The bedroom window. It's big, almost the size of the whole wall. I don't know where I could hide from its gaze — I guess, the corners on either side of it, or behind the bed — but luckily, it's got big, thick curtains, and as I pull the first layer away I find there's even two sets, which is a relief. I look out from the crack between them. It's nothing I didn't see coming in in the taxi: a parking lot and a Pizza Hut. Beyond that it looks like the city peters out into hills, a few trees here and there, and a chain-link fence so kids don't go out and play on the train tracks. Even though it goes all the way to the floor, the window doesn't have a balcony or sliding door. That doesn't mean it's not still an entrance point, though.

I reach through the gap, careful not to disturb the curtains any more than I have to, and I tap the window with my knuckle. I can't hear it too well. I tap it again, harder. I'm not going to get anywhere like this. I slowly push my body through the curtains and gently place my ear to the glass. My arm got between the curtains somehow, so when I go to tap it again I have to shimmy my whole body so it's parallel to the window, then turn my head back the way it was. I'm a sitting duck like this, isolated against the plain white linen of the inner curtain. Knock knock.

I can't quite believe my ears. It's just one layer, and it's not reinforced. It's not "tong"ing like plexiglass. Even though every passing second increases the security risk, I tap twice more. I reach down the window and tap further away. I put both my hands up against the window like I'm getting frisked and I push a couple times. It bows, even. I hate being right.

The phone rings from the desk, right next to where I’d dumped my cellphone and wallet. Would’ve thought it was mine, except I set it to do not disturb since I left the airport and learned our tour bus had no wi-fi. That, and the ringing’s that classic bell sound I haven’t heard since everyone stopped using landlines. I’m standing at the window, frozen like an idiot all the while it rings.

Rattling a window can’t have made that much noise, right? How thin are these walls, even?

I glance outside, phone still chirping, but there are no cars on the road and scarcely more in the parking lot across from my room. I could let it ring until they hang up. I could absolutely ignore it.

I fight back through the curtains, shut them tight behind me, and pick up my phone, setting it to “disturb I guess in case there’s an actual emergency”. The hotel phone rings all the while, and I pick it up. It’s the girl from reception. “Hey hun, this is reception.”

“Yes,” I pause, “hello.”

“We’ve still had no word from your luggage, but our porters have been informed to bring them straight to you just as soon as they arrive, Mr. Lachlan.”

So, the exact same situation as you explained to me not ten minutes ago when I checked in. You don’t say. “That’s fine. Thank you.”

“Toiletries should be all lined up in your en suite, but give us a call if there’s anything else you need. We’ve got a laundry service if you don’t mind changing into a bathrobe and you’d like the clothes you’re wearing clean by morning, I can send someone up —”

“That’s fine. Thank you.” I hang up before she tries treating me to a pedicure or something.

The door to the bathroom creaks when I open it, probably from the humidity. That's good. What isn't is what's on the other side of the door. Firstly: the door hits something and stops halfway through its arc — the toilet. If I actually wanted to use it, I'd have to come all the way in and then shut the door again and make a U-turn the full length of the door. The second thing making this one of the worst-designed hotel bathrooms I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot,) is that directly across from the doorway there’s another window. It's not a small thing at the top of the ceiling in case you need an air vent, it's another big one: tall, one I could fit through, and I guess that's intentional since this is the one the fire escape connects to.

In a way it might be considered comforting to know you have a ready exit route, but I'm simply nauseated by the multiplication of entrance points, and disgusted by how it has to link up into my bathroom, without even a curtain on the curtain rod to hide my freshly-showered body from whoever decides to climb the stairs. I suppose this libertine attitude is just a European thing, like the bidet I also get. Either that or there's one perverted fire marshall.

I grab the handle on the side of the window's lower pane and give it a few good yanks until my face starts to turn as red as the handle. Probably the humidity, again. Rust. I widen my stance and pull one more time, pushing off the wall with my foot — and fly backwards, hitting the linoleum with my tailbone and leaving a head-shaped dent in the plywood door. Just great.

After I take a breath (or really, a sigh,) I try to stand up. I pull my knees in, put my hand down on the floor for support — then immediately take it off and fall back down, hissing from the pain. I take a look at my hand. I've cut it nasty right under my fingers on the fire escape handle. Amazing how much more secure the emergency exit is than the front door. I stand up, using my right hand this time, and pull open the first cabinet under the sink. No bandages, just pristine white towels, crisply folded. Before I can get to the second drawer, I hear my cell phone ringing back in the other room. I quickly wrap my injury in the towel so I stop dripping blood everywhere and move back into the bedroom.

"Hello, yes?"

"Hi, this is Alice from Eurotrip," says Alice from the tour company. "I hope you're settling in okay?"

"Well, I actually have a bit of a situation over here." I clutch the towel to my hand and the phone to my shoulder.

"Great to hear," she says. "Listen, we're sending around your luggage now, so it shouldn't be long."

"Okay, thanks, I gotta —"

"We would like to apologize for the overbooking situation," says Alice. "How does a $15 gift certificate sound?"

"Fine, whatever." I grab the phone and hang it up. It tells me I have only 10% battery left. I've probably already wasted 10% of my blood. Or at least 10% of my time.

I have a bleeding hand, an almost-dead phone, a wide-open bathroom window, a crick in my neck from the plane and the bus, and the rest of the evening to myself — though God knows how I'm going to sleep somewhere like this. What now?

> Well, at least wash up your hand first. Get some of the blood cleaned up.

> Let's close the window. Some peace of mind would be nice while you wash your hand.

Might as well head outside and see if there's anywhere to get some food. Worst case, you can settle for Pizza Hut.

While you're at it, remind yourself why you're here in the first place so you can work out if it's really worth all this trouble.

I squirm through and around the bathroom door again, and fumble right-handed with the taps. They loosen with a squeak, a rusty noise confirmed by a splutter of red that’s quickly drowned out amongst my hand-blood. I’m checking the remaining cabinet underneath the sink, best as I can at any rate while my left hand’s sitting up in there. The cabinet is similarly worthless for first aid, with nothing but the promised toiletries: soaps, individually vacuum-packed sponges and washcloths, and a spare bathrobe.

The towel I wrapped my hand in is now a bloodied mess crumpled on the floor, which will definitely stain if I get distracted and leave it lying around. I tool around with the lever until it drains the now-cranberry vodka contents of the sink, grab a wad of toilet paper to press against my sliced-up hand, and toss the towel in the sink with a bar of soap.

It’s just as I get the right quantity of lukewarm flowing from the tap that my phone rings from the bedroom. Again.

I pick up my cell phone. "Yes, hel—" I yank it away from my ear on reflex. It's not a human voice. It' a horrible, screeching cacophony from outer space. Some idiot is trying to send a fax to my cell phone. Annoyed, I hang up.

It suddenly occurs to me: what if that call on my cell phone had merely been a distraction to get my back to the open window? I pocket my cellphone and swivel on my heels. No such misfortune, for now. Nevertheless, I proceed with caution back into the bathroom, keeping a special eye on the mirror. The running water masks my footsteps, but the same could apply to an intruder.

Nobody's there but me, Lachlan. I take a look at the fire escape handle, to see — astonishingly — that the window hasn't so much as budged. Before, I was worried it'd be too easy to open. Now, I'm worried that, in an actual emergency, I wouldn't be able to. I'm more careful this time. I take a washcloth out of the drawer and wrap it around the handle. I make sure the door is open behind me. I brace my left hand with my right. My cell phone rings. It's that awful noise again. I hang up immediately.

I simply can not stand for these interruptions every five seconds. I have to do something now, or I'll never be able to focus and get anything done at all. I fumble with my cell phone in wet hands and call the number right back.

"Hello! We see you're calling from an internationally roaming phone. If you have inquiries about your current tour, please input the six-digit Trippass number found on your e-itinerary. Or, call our regional —" I hang up. Why are they trying to fax my cell phone? I go back into the bedroom, sit on the bed (for the first time since I got here,) and redial the phone number from my call log into the room phone. It's rotary, so my cell phone falls asleep halfway through when I'm trying to read the damn number and I'm worried that that delay will jinx the whole number, but it goes through. Or at least, I think it does until I hear the voice on the other end of the line.

"Hotel Caravel front desk," says the girl from reception. I curse and slam down the receiver. I dial the number again.

"Hotel Caravel front desk speaking," says the girl from reception. I curse again, and slam down the receiver. I dial the number again, this time from memory.

Now she's laughing. She's laughing at me. "Hotel Caravel... front desk... speaking," she says, in jolts between chuckles.

"Can you just tell me how to fucking dial a number that doesn't bring me to the fucking front desk?!" I yell at her.

"Sir," she laughs, "You really need to clamor down there."

"Just tell me," I plead.

"Zero first, sir."

"Thank you." I press the receiver button down with my free hand, then dial the same number for the fifth time. This time, it works.

“Welcome to EuroTrip Tours helpline. For more language options, please press 1. 日本語の場合は、2を押してください。. 要是你说中文，按三键 . Para português por favor, pressione 4. Para español, por favor, pulse 5. For menu options in English, please hold."

I have to navigate a menu on a rotary phone? Okay. Whatever. Wait. 3. 1. 2. 3. Another dial tone. They play me some hold music. They call my cell phone. They play me some fax noises. I still don't know why. I leave them both playing as I'm leaving blood on my bed and the carpet. What is happening?

“Hello? Hello???”

I’m startled out of a gargle-siren-induced haze by an actual voice on the landline. “Ugh. Yes. Hello.” I hang up my cellphone.

“Good evening and thank you for calling the EuroTrip Tours helpline, you are speaking with Esteban, how may I help you?”

The edge of bed where I’m sitting is just far away enough from the just-too-short reach of the phone’s earpiece, leaving me hunched over and irritatingly shy of a place to rest my elbows. “Yes, hello, this is Allen Lachlan, I’m on one of your tours, and your head office keeps trying to send a fax to my cellphone. I’m busy enough trying to settle in, and unintelligible shrieks aren’t helping.”

“I’m very sorry, I am not in contact with EuroTrip’s head office as they are outside office hours. If you can provide your Trippass access number however I may check your account for correspondences.”

“I don’t have an access number, and if I do it’s in my luggage, which went missing since I got on your tour bus from St Maine International Airport.”

“Hmmmmmmm.” I fight the urge to choke myself on the earpiece. “If this is the tour arrived today, Mister Lockling, then you should be calling from the Prestige-Fairmont Hotel —”

“I,” I avoid screaming, “have been housed elsewhere. That hotel was overbooked. And my name is Allen Lachlan, not ling.”

A pause, then: “My apologies, sir, I have found you on today’s intake and can confirm your Trippass number is 003507. Please keep this somewhere safe in case you wish to make inquiries in the future. Is there anything else I may help you with today?”

“Yes, actually. Can you please tell me why your head office is sending me faxes, and to tell them to stop.”

“I’m very sorry, sir, I cannot address your first inquiry however I may add alternative contact details to our database, so they may be sent to your hotel instead. May I please have your alternative contact number sir?”

"Uh, just give me a second," I say. When I first checked in the concierge gave me a slip of paper from a memo pad with some phone number scrawled on it, saying "here's the phone number," and now it's in my wallet which is on the nightstand so I take it out of my wallet and then I read it back over the phone.

"Very good, we'll send it right over. Thank you for touring with EuroTrip and we apologize once again for the inconvenience, sir."

"Thanks." I hang up. The receiver dings softly. I didn't notice that before. It's quaint.

I get up from the bed and rub the sides of my head. Somewhere amongst the unreasonable pressure I'm applying to my temples, I get the thought in my head that I should head out; go find a more substantial meal than this-wasn't-half-bad-what's-with-all-the-jokes-about-airline-food airline food.

I worry for my sanity.

This isn’t a vacation, this is as close to falling off the grid as it gets while still getting God damn phone calls. This isn’t the Emory Conference Hotel in Atlanta, for crying out loud, this is Europe! Three planes and half a day from civilisation! Six currencies! Twelve languages! Border disputes chugging along for decades like they’re just a fact of life and nobody would ever bother to tell you until you stepped on a landmine! Wolves, probably! Some people may take a push from HR to take a vacation as a reality check. Those people appreciate the externally-mandated call to re-evaluate their career, work-life balance, whatever, because those kinds (most kinds!) of people would never have it apropos of jack all cross their happy little minds to do so.

I like to think I’m ahead of the curve on this kind of thing. I, my career, my work-life-balance, my bank balance, my steadily-increasing sum of vacation days, all was accounted for and well until I left that travel agency with a folder full of tickets, itineraries, checklist of vaccinations, and a dreadful — nay, dreadsome — sense of inevitability.

Things will be well. All it hinges on is some personal discipline. Staying the course. A stiff upper lip, as I believe they call it on this side of the Atlantic. Two months will almost certainly feel like eternity if I’m conscientious about this, because the alternative is a 60 day whirlwind of sights and sounds and no time to steel myself for the mess my absence will doubtless have caused at the office.

The landline rings, breaking my train of thought. Wolves? I snap the receiver to my ear and just as quickly put it back down again. Those bastards are FAXING a ROTARY PHONE. I glance over to the note the concierge left me and dial the number on it.

Busy signal.

I gave them my room phone number. I gave them my room phone number, to send a fax to. As if on cue, my cell phone rings. It's also a fax.

On the rotary, I dial the EuroTrip support number without the 0, which brings me back to the front desk.

"Hotel Caravel front desk speaking," says the woman on the other side.

"What," I say, "is the phone number to your fax machine?"

I write it down on the same piece of paper my phone number is on. I go back through the jungle of the phone trees and wait on hold for another 97 hours. 003570. No wait, I mean 003507. It's pronounced Lachlan. Can you just stop sending the fax? Well, can you send it here? Great. Love you too! Bye.

I fall backwards onto my bed, exhausted. The ceilings in this place are suspended square tiles. Despite this, the ceiling fan seems pretty stable as the blades whip past. I wonder how fast they're going, if they could hurt me. I wonder what's hidden above that ceiling.

My eyes are peeled like potatoes, and that's when the phone rings. Both of them, at the same time.

Which phone, if either, do I answer?

Answer your cell. If it's a fax again, just shut the damn thing off. Then try the other one.

I slap the cellular telephone to my ear, wait a second, and only hear ringing. Oh, right. I unlock the screen, accept the call, and then listen to the wail of a faxular fail. I absently hurl the phone across the room and roll over, groaning. I can find it again when it rings again.

I roll over some more, tossing and turning, eyes clenched shut. The rotary phone rings and it snaps my gaze towards headboardways where I notice water sluicing out of the bathroom and onto the carpet. Pink water, with stripes of red. I sit up in bed, look at my still-bleeding hand, look at the red stain I've left on my nice white pillow and the comforter, and take two long steps into the bathroom.

Slosh slosh. Figures these European sinks would clog the first time you try to use them. I turn off the running water. The water's so murky and red in the sink I can't even tell what's causing the clog — rusty pipes? — so I have no recourse but to roll up my sleeve and wince as I feel around for any obstruction in the basin. Apparently, the rag I had used to staunch my gash had acted as a plug.

No matter. I drop it where I stand, hoping it absorbs at least something from the floor, and stride back to pick up the phone before it stops ringing.

This time, to my complete surprise, it's not a fax at all! It's a person, but all they have to say is "sorry, wrong number," before they immediately hang up — perhaps "person" is a misnomer, since the likeliest explanation is a crank caller.

I hear then the harsh vibrations and melodic tones of my haphazardly-discarded cell phone. I sigh and cast my attentions throughout the room briskly until I aurally locate its position with a growing sense of abject horror. My careless toss must have landed my cell phone behind the radiator! Every second, it melts and warps further. I panic, and for some reason my first instinct is to try to go directly through the radiator, and I end up singeing off some hairs and possibly cauterizing my wound.

No, I must be smart about this. And I am smart. Again I briskly stride back to the bathroom, and again wrap my hand in the now-soaking towel, trying to adjust it into a crude mitten while walking back.

I inhale sharply and finagle my hand behind the radiator from below. From this angle, I am privileged to admire the details of the fake seashells glued onto the radiator, and wonder if that is in any way fire-safe. My makeshift glove emits a rank steam, a faint smell of death, as I, actually, successfully close my fist around my phone.

Knock knock. “Laundry,” says someone. “Sir? Hallo?” I jolt upright as I hear whoever the hell struggling with the door key, my door key. I try to get up to rush to the door and open it for him, but I nearly break my wrist! A gripping hand is too bulbous for the crevasse.

The door opens, deaf to my protests, and a kid (and it is just a kid, sixteen at a stretch and looking ready to pick a fight over it) has a wicker basket on some kind of cart with handles, and stares at me like this whole situation is somehow my fault. I stare back at him, flop-sweat mightily exaggerated by the proximity to the radiator.

“You’re not sleeping.” Vaguely accusatory, before he glances down like he remembered his place. “I’m here for laundry.”

“I.” I turn to try and face him, but my shoulder protests and a ridge on the radiator makes just the right amount of contact to really scorch a mark on my elbow. I settle for half a gesture. “Do not. Need my laundry. Done.”

The kid frowns, glances at the door (my door, still open to the hallway and anyone who cares to peer in,) takes a good long hard look at a crumpled note in his pocket, double-checks the door.

“Yes you do. Room 324. Mr. Korhonen said. This room.” He’s getting frustrated, but he’s one of either polite or doggedly dense enough to not comment on the lingering fog of blood or the fact I’m still sitting by the radiator. I wonder if I could just hand him a wet towel and send him on his way, but that would entail consigning my phone to the ravages of European central heating or letting him into the flooded bathroom. I wonder if I could just melt him behind a radiator instead.

The rotary phone rings and I disconnect its cord from the wall with my leg while he pulls my comforter into his wicked basket. "Leave it!" I shout. "I assure you, young man, that I know what my problems are and laundry is not one of them," I say. It’s hard to be haughty when you’re stuck behind a radiator, but hopefully I manage it.

"You've got... blood. Sir," he says, as if adding the title makes up for his impudence. "It's all on your shirt. And the pillow." He coughs, from the smoke.

"It's my blood, I'll be fine. Now leave, so I can attend to my business in tranquility," I say, affecting calm as I can feel the rag crisping up around my hand. The still-soaked inner layers are approaching boiling point, or feel like it against my enclosed hand. Despite myself, I am crying. I don't think he can tell against the cascades of sweat, luckily.

The kid looks ready to protest, before shrugging and wheeling his cart out of my doorway. He slams the door on the way out. Thank God. Now my problems in this world shrink, briefly, to only one:

How am I ever going to extract my cell phone and hand from behind the radiator before anything burns? And assuming I do that without burning my room down, what should I deal with next?

Try to just push your phone out ahead of your hand. Yeah, you'll probably drop it, but at least it'll be closer, probably?

Turn off the radiator with your other hand, if you're able? There should be a valve on these things.

Oh, and then seek some medical attention! I mean, you're bleeding from a wound inflicted by a not-too-clean window for chrissakes, you could get tetanus (if your shots aren't up-to-date).