I don’t want to put too much stock in first impressions, but the hostel that serves as the gateway to my volunteer experience in a small village in Romania certainly distinguishes itself in this regard. I was met at the door by a cheerful bearded fellow with a comforting Canadian accent (and I actually heard it. For the first time ever, I think) who introduced himself via his lineage back 7 steps and welcomed me warmly but vaguely awkwardly into the building. In a formal suit, no less, though perhaps the dinner below is of a formal nature. The hostel is the polar opposite from the one I’ve just come from in Veliko Tarnovo. That was one of a small, Bulgarian only chain of three hostels, and I don’t think I’ve ever stayed somewhere more… hostely. It was the form of a hostel. They did everything right. Not perfect. But exactly hostely. The main space was full of cushions, had a tv that was very rarely on, a computer permanently occupied by one of the staff playing downtempo french electronica, wifi, a couple of computers, a very beat up classical guitar, an easle, a magnetic chessboard, a fridge stocked with pay-at-checkout-but-write-it-down beer and juice, and was at various times occupied by a talented but withdrawn Japanese painter, a boisterous group of drunken Romanians keeping people up (guilty), a very hungover Australian, and all manner of other itinerants. Plenty of maps and advice, daytrips. The whole shebang. Perfect.

This place, as alluded to, is different. As if to illustrate the potential sketchiness, something on the local wifi just attempted to take advantage of my lax share settings to dump some nasty worms onto ye olde hard disk. PSA: use antivirus. But besides that. This is one of those places that we’ll all been in, that isn’t that tremendously spacious to begin with, but is made infinitely less so by the addition of a great many Things. Things of all kinds. There’s a piano in the entrance hallway, along with several ill-positioned chairs and shelves who’s contents I hardly glimpsed. This is the school of interior decorating that tackles the problem of a somewhat too-cramped kitchen by adding a Gigantic fishtank (lid slightly ajar). There’s a water cooler in the 2nd-floor lobby that looks like it’s forgotten what wet is. A gold-framed picture of pink flowers tied to the hot water pipe with a bit of twine nicely accents the pink rose stripe of wallpaper that subs for crown moulding in my door bedroom. The door handles are loose, it smells of old, and my bed has a couple of missing boards.

But I like it. It could still go either way, but so far I definitely like it. The radiator/hot water holding thing in the corner of the room is made of tile, in the style of a 500 year old stove. It has copper doors, and looks like it means business. Although the second part can’t open because there’s furniture in the way, the door to this room is still a beautiful french-style thing, of real wood and piercing a wall that’s well over a foot thick. There’s such a thing as being too slick, and while this might tread a little too far in the other direction (as I said, we’ll see) it’s a refreshing change.