What’s your partner’s favourite story- about you?
In case your partner is British (or French) you can count on it being something awful and profoundly sarcastic that makes you look utterly ridiculous.
I know the story Mike most enjoys telling about me happened circa 2001. I was young (22) and pretty then- quite sheltered as well.
We were at a club and that evening I happened to get a table and a bottle. Hint hint, if you buy a bottle at a club you get preferential treatment. They write your name on the bottle and leave it at your table while you’re at the club. When you leave they make a mark of how much you drank so you know no one else drinks from your bottle. When you go back, your bottle is waiting for you.
Anyway, depending on the club getting a table is a big deal. There are people dying to sit down. That evening Mike was a guest at my table (we weren’t quite a couple yet.) There was a small group lurking nearby and eventually one of them begged us to let them sit down with us. They were university students from central Spain. All very charming.
It was their first time in the south and they were loving it. They all started speaking English because they heard us speaking English, I suppose. And so it began…
Young man: Everything here is so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so wonderful before.
Me: It is lovely. A bit crowded during the holidays.
Young man: Do you two live here?
Me: Yes, I live on the beachfront. He lives in the middle of nowhere.
Young man: We’re staying at a place that’s not very nice. We’d love to come back in the summer. Do you know of a nice hostel?
Me: A what?
Young man: A nice hostel. Ours is terrible.
Me: (laughter) Darling, in English the word is HO-TEL. There’s no S. It’s HO-TEL.
Young man: No, I mean hostel, like a cheap hotel.
Me: A cheap hotel? Like a Holiday Inn? There’s still no S. It’s a HO-TEL.
Young man: No. A hotel is a hotel and a hostel is a hostel.
Me: There’s no such thing. A cheap hotel is still called a hotel. Sometimes in America they call them motels; And there’s still no S in the middle of the word.
Mike was enjoying all of this very quietly, smirking.
Young man: In a hostel we share a room with other people.
Me: What? You sleep in a room with other people? People you know?
Young man: It depends, sometimes people we don’t know.
Me: What? Why?
Young man: It’s a way for students to travel and see the world.
Me: By sharing a room with people you don’t know? That’s ridiculous. This hostel word is probably something German or Dutch. They like nudism and such. I don’t think you’ll find a hosssssssstel anywhere else in the world.
Young man: We’re staying at a hostel, here, now.
And this went on and on and on. Not once did HE nudge me to say that not only did the word exist, but most people knew it. And now he gets to tell this story until the end of time.
My Mazamet 
“What’s your partner’s favourite story – about you?”
There’s no way I’m telling, but it’s a helluva lot worse than yours.
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I doubt it!
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I can out-disgrace you any time Mr. M! 🙄
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Give it your best shot!
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No – I don’t trust you; you might go and tell someone. You’re hardly god’s gift to discretion are you!
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If only you knew what I’ve given up in the name of discretion.
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Remember, all evil originates in the mind – yours by the sound of it. 😮
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Are you sure? I try to think of it differently. We do the best we can with what we have.
“I wish I’d been accepted sooner and better…”
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Oh, I have Andrew’s book, The Noonday Demon – a magisterial work.
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Good, good Hariod!
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After all, that’s not a bad description of Contentedness.
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Very few people say that about me.
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I love this so much. What a wonderful idea. Partner and I have been together 9.5 years, so I’m interested in hearing what his favorite story about me will be. I have so many memories of him, it is very hard to pick my favorite of him.
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My H loves to tell everyone about our first date, which ended in a hotel and wearing the same clothes in the morning. I can laugh about it now, and it’s not quite as embarrassing as yours.
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I’m surprised Mike didn’t rag you with YMCA being the biggest hostel in the world.
Ju would always tells the story of us having a few words and me steaming away upstairs to my study.Every move was the exaggerated kind like a flounce. She heard me stomping (she said) and then silence followed by a rather small voice calling her and saying “Come up a moment but don’t be worried”.
Worried!! When she saw me she burst out laughing. I’d leaned over my desk rather forcefully and impaled myself on a 15″ momento pencil. It was waggling about from my forehead like a bl**dy unicorn horn. To this day I still have a little mark from the graphite.There was no way I could maintain any dignity and nor could I remain cross as she removed it from my head.
Hugs.
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Hahaha! Pink this was funny
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-giggles- Oh Pinky…. :p
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You mean you’d never been youth hosteling in your teens? What a deprived youth you had. Excellent fun, walking from hostel to hostel on public footpaths, doing a daily chore at the hostel (to keep costs down). Even my strict father thought it was acceptable for me to do because we had wardens in charge. Until I told him we’d been out drinking (under age) with the male warden and his mate.
I usually tell the story about how I met A in a hossssssstel in Sydney. But it’s not for repeating on here.
Finally I didn’t know there was a hostel in Marbella. Although I did stay in a hostal. I can understand your confusion given the similarity of the words but it is a funny story. I would have got quite annoyed with you if you’d argued with me 😀
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It’s funny how certain things just don’t register mentally. I must have at some point seen a sign saying hostel somewhere and simply dismissed it as a mistake.
I had a similar discussion in America regarding taxes. Someone told me they were ‘getting their tax check.’ I obviously answered they were confused. People don’t get checks from the government, we pay taxes to the government 🙂
I was also wrong. In their system the government withholds taxes, so 77% of people get a check at the end of the financial year…
I now know hostal in Marbella is in the old town. Near Plaza de los Naranjos.
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If they’d said albergue would that have meant anything to you? Or was it not in your Spanish vocabulary? (ie auberge in French, auberge de jeunnesse)
Hostel, (not hostal of which there are loads) in Marbella seems to be off the bus station road. It has a pool! For €20 a night in a shared 3-bed dorm. Sounds good and cheap. Can’t remember what I paid in my hostal. Not much. I did get my own en-suite room though. No window, internal room, and def no pool.
Don’t know if you ever read this post I wrote. My last cheapo accommodation in Spain on solo travel in Burgos. No en-suite bathroom, my own room but it felt like sharing through the walls!
Pic of €15 room in slide show:
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Absolutely. Albergue, venta, auberge and pension were all part of my vocabulary.
What’s the difference between a hostal and hostel?
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Is that a serious question? 😀
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Btw, I know you’re a lettuce specialist. How do you handle those tiny seeds and how do you space them? I planted lines of lettuce in the greenhouse and half of them didn’t germinate. Can I crowd lettuce?
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Time of year is a big issue. Plus age of seeds, variety, and whether or not they are collected seeds, rather than bought ones.
You can crowd, but not too much, and you are meant to pick out the others. I tend to just scatter at lib. Wrong week, wrong moon cycle who knows? In the UK mizuna always worked well, rocket is hardy anywhere, in Spain quatro estaciones is probably a good one. Can’t help on France though. Should be good to go now though. They seem to grow lettuce all year round in my pueblo. Try again. Ah. Greenhouse too hot? Or is it shaded?
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We used to grow Reine de Mai for the early lettuce and Sucrine for later sowings when in France. Given the weather, it might have been too hot in your greenhouse. (No space outside yet?)
The thinnings from the first didn’t come well, but the Sucrine thinnings came on well again after a week’s check.
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Reine de mai has NEVER worked for me 😦
At all times of year. Serves me right for buying seeds from Eroski!
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Really? Heat must be the problem. We don’t have much space outside the greenhouse. The reine de mai is one of the few that sprouted. I’m going to look for sucrine right now.
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We are so going to steal this idea and use it on our blog sometime! Although I hate to think what Sophie will say about me… I used to stay in a lot of hostels but I’m getting far too prissy and fond of creature comforts for that these days.
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Oh, princess… 🙂
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I should have added Australian to German and Dutch. You hippie nudist backpackers.
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You sheltered petal… Australians (and New Zealander’s) only take our clothes off for Nuddy 500’s. Germans and Dutch cook naked 🙂
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Of course, there were no nudist beaches near Sotogrande were there? …
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Haha. Great story. I’ll ask my wife later just out of curiosity. You’re right though, it will probably be something humiliating.
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I will think of your story whenever I hear the word ‘hostel’ now….it must rank highly on the embarrassment scale. My husband’s favourite tale about me is how we first met….at a Baptist Church in our teens (I know, we were young & didn’t know any better), & he says all he remembers of that day is I was thin, wore lots of make up (black kohl, silver lipstick, heavy mascara) had a very low necked top on, a very short black skirt, & black suede thigh length boots. Those were the days when I wasn’t ashamed of my legs. Apparently I looked quite different to the other conservatively dressed girls.
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It worked! 🙂
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The funny thing was, nobody at that church batted an eyelid over what I looked like, until one day in winter I wore an ankle length skirt. You should have heard the disapproving comments. That was the last time either of us went there….it was a reality check to the hypocrisy they all practiced.
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