Ooooo Hostel na Kurskoi, where art thou?
I arrived at Kurskaia station at 12.09 noon..unloaded my big ass luggage and waited for a friend of mine and her companions near the entrance to the station, she like me has the same bookings at this particular hostel.
I was not about to drag my big ass luggage around Moscow city whilst looking for the elusive hostel, so i decided to place my luggage in the 24 hour luggage holding unit - one of the safest ones i have ever encountered, its open for 24 hours and per day it only costs 170 rubbles [it used to be 140 rubble]- this luggage storing unit is located on the minus 1 floor under KFC -if anyone needs any refference-
The adventure begins. We went out of the station and followed the map, according to the hostel it should be only 10 minutes away from the station -which i agree if we did not get lost or of we knew where we were going-
I sort of led the group as my friend has no idea where the hostel was..all she had was the adress - i had a picture in my mind from google earth..so i kind of knew where i was going -
However, google earth is not that accurate at all, i led the group further and further away from the hostel..im sorry for that.
Since my friend had the adress, we started to look for the hostel the old school way, by looking at street numbers and apartment numbers...and at one point we were sure that we had reached the place...BUT there was a massive locked gate, we could not enter, i tried to call the hostest but failed because - my russian number would only work in kursk, though the day before i had activated roaming services..i felt cheated- my friends companion tried as well...but he too failed
Then came a stylish middle aged women, she was concerned about us..a group of foreigners in her hood..-i would to if it were to happen in my place- so we asked her and she knew what we were talking about -Alhamdulillah- we spoke russian, she spoke back in english... -yarabbi- she said we were in the right place and helped us call our hostel...
We got in finally to the hostel. But UNFORTUNATELY, the hostest said that we jad no bookings with them whatsoever! My heart sinked..i was thinking where would all 5 of us stay? The hostel was fully booked and it was a small hostel..we told her everything..we booked using booking.com, she said yes you did that but did you confirm your stay - when did we ever need to confirm our stay, ain't the credit card details enough for our confirmation on that site? - and so that is when we ended up homeless.
My best friend who was on his way in another train was unaware of this...as our internet connection was bad...i could only tell him when we were re-directed to another hostel
One thing good about this hostel was they took responsibility of our situation, the hostest called to another hostel near the station which had 3 empty female beds and 2 male beds for the same price as was offered to us. The bad thing was we had to go look for it..and she said it was a good 15 minutes walk..taking the metro was not an option - which was not the case, because later when we went to explore there was a nearer route via the metro-
We walked and walked and walked again for almost 30 minutes till we find the hostel...there they accepted us..-Alhamdulillah- we settled everything, our payments and bed sheets-
I had to leave my friend as i had to go pick up my friend who has arrived from kursk..with little to no internet connection i just had to have faith that he was waiting in the station as i had told him to via old school short messaging system..i reached the station in less then 30 minutes..practically running
He was there Alhamdulillah..i told him everything from the vodka guy to the new hostel that we are going to be staying in that night..
Walked back to that hostel..settled everything..refreshed and went out to Marukame
Woot woot
And the story will continue....
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