No Book Left Behind

This article made me laugh: what are the most left-behind books in hotel rooms?

[Alastair Campbell’s] memoir, which has sold over 55,000 copies since its publication in June, may be “the most compelling and revealing account of contemporary politics you will ever read” according his publishers, Hutchinson, but it appears not to be compelling enough for readers to want to hang on to it. A new survey compiled by the hotel chain Travelodge has The Blair Years topping the list of literary works most often left behind in hotel rooms.

I love that there was a survey about this – and that a book actually won!! The books on the list are not surprising – mostly light fare, holiday reading, celebrity biography, etc. – books people will bring with them as they travel. Hysterical!!

Reminds me of an old Diary Friday … and a book I left behind in the most memorable youth hostel in the most random town on the west of Ireland …

My sister Jean and myself. On a mission to get to the Aran Islands. We had a bit of an issue finding a B&B and in the process of driving around ripped the bumper off our car. We ended up staying in a youth hostel in a one-road town outside of Galway – right on the ocean.

It’s such a memorable night. Anyway, here’s the diary entry. I hope the next traveler who stayed in that insane freezing room staring out at some nuclear waste dump enjoyed the discarded book more than I did!!

November, Ireland
The Stella Maris Hostel: One of the guys talking to me about the ferry [to the Aran Islands] from Galway– thick brogue– He saw the look on my face, stopped himself, grinned: “Can ya’ understand me?”

At first they put us in this room that would have to be seen to be believed. Light blue stained walls, awful overhead lights, FILTHY — and about four random bunk beds strewn about. No sheets. Ripped-up mattresses. Jean was still in a glowering mood [because we had accidentally ripped the bumper off of our rent-a-car], so she threw her bag down, and sat on one of the bottom bunks. “Fine. This is fine.” Totally resigned to fate.

The entire place smelled of cabbage.

It was only 7 or 7:30. We had hours to go before bedtime. I had about three books in my bag. All visions of a cozy B&B with a bedside lamp, and a big puf-a-puf bed vanished. Now all we had was stripped bunk beds (four of them), dirty overhead lights with dead bugs trapped inside, and cabbage. I couldn’t read in this room!

And we were no longer sure that we would even make it to Rossaveal in the morning. The guys downstairs made it sound like a journey up Everest’s north face.

They had pity on us and moved us into another room — just a little bit better. Outside: a round tourist-info building up against the sea wall. But from our view, it looked like a vat of some kind of nuclear waste.

Finally, the bumper debacle dissipated and what took its place? The giggles. Every time we looked at the nuclear waste dump outside we would lose it again. Jean and I thrashed about in our freezing room, laughing like maniacs. We couldn’t stand to stay in the room.

We asked the guys downstairs for a wake-up call. What were we thinking?

We took a walk along the sea. Looking out into the darkness. Out there in the cold– out there somewhere — were the Aran Islands. People living their lives out there … as we speak. Makes me feel homesick. The smell of the salt air. Jean and me walking along, wolfing down crackers, putting off going back to that bleak room.

Finally we came back to the Stella Maris — got our books — and went down to the pub next door. It was only 9or so, maybe earlier. Jean had In the Time of Butterflies, and I had one of my airport books: The Notebook, which a friend had raved about to me. That’s the last time I read a book HE recommends. It SUCKED. I could not even bear it.

The pub was dingy, like an old living room. Dusty rug, crackling fire, smoky air, couches, the bartender playing cards with someone. A bunch of rowdy giggly short-skirted Galway girls huddled over by the fire, celebrating a birthday, drinking, smoking, making constant cell phone calls.

Jean and I sat drinking, and reading. Communing peacefully. It’s such a different bar scene than in the States. Mellow. Like you’re in your own house. Then the Galway girls left, we took their seats by the fire, and it was just us four people in the pub. For hours. The TV on with no sound. Jean and I reading, drinking Guinness, Jean having an enraptured reading experience, and I, to put it bluntly, was NOT having an enraptured reading experience. When we left the next morning, I left the book in a drawer in the room, with a note: “Warning: This book is AWFUL.”

Added to the graffiti in the bathroom: “Sheila and Avram, Nov. 19**”

Why did I do this? Sort of as a joke. Sometimes it comes to my mind, that across the ocean that graffiti still exists. For some reason — it makes me want to giggle. Those random words written by ME in the Stella Maris Pub, Salt Hill, County Galway, Ireland … I mean, it’s comical, on some level … in a sort of bitter way. Making a joke out of my own life (or lack of life).

Finally — past midnight — up to our dreadful room. It was so freezing that we climbed into the lumpy double bed with all of our clothes on, and socks, and mittens, and hats.

Jean read to me, and then we both fell asleep.

We woke up two hours past the time we had asked for a “wake-up call”. I bolted upright like a lunatic.

“Jean? What time is it?”

Something felt wrong. Too much traffic outside, too much light.

We lay in stunned paralysis for a moment, trying to comprehend the turn of events. It was twenty to 9. The ferry from Rossaveal left at ten. And everyone had made us afraid about the difficulty of the drive. Would we ever get to the Aran Islands?

Then came the turning point moment.

Jean: “Sheila. I think we can make it. If we get up and go NOW.”

And that’s what we did.

The Tazmanian Devil O’Malley sisters, tossing our shit into bags, shoving hats down on our sleepy hair, racing down the stairs … Those guys were SO not around. Jean called out, through the sleeping hostel lobby: “Thanks a lot for the wake-up call, guys!!”

And … we MADE it. Even with stopping to tape up the bumper, and the damn wheel hub fiasco — turning around to go get it — me running across the street to grab it. And the road was SO not bad. The guys at the Stella Maris made it sound like it would be a dirt road, and that we would need 4-wheel drive. We certainly were out in the middle of nowhere, bleak, all Gaelic signs, but the roads themselves were fine. “Fields” on one side, filled with rocks. More rocks than dirt. Brown and grey chopped-up rocky land as far as the eye can see. Grey ocean crashing to our left.

And then — an hour behind schedule — we made it. We were on the ferry to the Aran Islands. We could hardly believe that we had MADE it. We DID it.