Anyway, as the hostel is now jampacked again, plans were afoot to turn Room 2 back into a bedroom.
Unfortunately, this was to prove more difficult than originally thought. News reached me about 8 o' clock that the lock on the door to Room 2 had sheared off and no one could get in. I wandered round to Room 2 to see Aidan and Niels (from Koln, Germany) on their knees - Aidan jostling the key in the lock and Niels with a pallete knife trying to splay open a gap in the frame.
It was imperative they gained access to the room that night as soon they would have three backpackers in the hallway, fresh off a 26-hour flight and wanting beds. And, so far, success was not forthcoming.
But when word got around that a door was stuck, a wave of testosterone was released into the atmosphere. And in the same way a shark can detect a single drop of blood in the ocean, men began naturally gravitating towards the "situation"; their chance to be manly, their chance to play "Bob The Builder".
Within minutes there were 8 men stood around - some scratching their chins or their heads - all throwing ideas at the door. At least 6 of the 8 talked about kicking it in. But this was not a solution. Then someone suggested a master key. Then someone suggested kicking it in again.
When Big Franc from Dublin heard he too came racing over. Franc "don't call me Francis" Neary has a degree in Medicine from Gonville and Caius College, Oxford and Masters from Trinity College, Dublin. Naturally he treated the whole thing as a fiendish intellectual challenge and put his big brain to work.
"Right" he said "Get me some scissors", and began carving up an empty plastic container previously home to a Sweet and Sour Chicken. When he'd finished he proudly displayed his plastic origami sculpture before jamming it in the lock and jiggling it expertly.
Meanwhile, outside in the cold distance, Aidan and Dan were trying to force two double doors open. Again, to no avail. Dan had fashioned a rudimentary loop from a coathanger and with his tongue sticking out was attempting to hook it round the door handle and open the door.
Meanwhile back at the door Franc's genius plastic skeleton key had failed miserably and he taken to shoving anything to hand through the gap. This included some free magazines and an A4 ringbinder entitled "Sydney - What's On?"
Meanwhile Dan was in. He'd used the palette knife to break open the window lock, and within seconds opened the door with a huge grin on his face, and began shaking hands with the assembled throng. It was like that time the French and English diggers met at the middle of The Channel Tunnel.
I think Franc was secretly disappointed. Here he was, a man with degrees from Oxford and Dublin, beaten by a man with an BTEC in Business Studies from Welwyn Garden City College For Further Education.
The best suggestion of the evening came from Niels from Koln. He said:
"In a situation like this I always like to ask myself 'What would David Hasselhoff do?".
So I think we should come running down the stairs in just our pants and shoulder barge it open"
After you.....
Dan tries to force open the back doors.
Franc tries his plastic skeleton key....
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