Wicked Times in the Palace

Vacancy

Location: The Palace Penthouse, Rue de petit St. Bernard, La Rosiere, France

Duration: This week only as Roberto has been transferred

Ideal tennant: A non smoking male who likes making noise, taking the piss/having the piss taken out of, and has a high tolerance for mess

Rent: Nil, just prepare to have your personal possessions go missing

The opening is to share with myself, Dion Bear, and 10 other guys in a staff accommodation known as the Palace. I feel that it does not deserve its jestful nickname, because, although it is not much to look at, its hardly a terrible place to live rent-free. The beauty of it, apart from having some of our female colleagues next door, is that with so many of us here there's rarely a dull moment.

Organised fun- just as good as regular fun

I used to live in a room with five others:

Ed (often drinking tea and taking leisurely showers), 

Ollie (child at heart who will smash glasses and throw cold water at you in the shower),
Michael (known usually as Weakle due to his disposition to illness),

Ginge (absolutely irate all of the time, especially, and understandably, when his Irn Bru goes 'missing', 

and Roberto (who is too fancy for a place like this and has a dislike for laddishness.)

There was a lack of storage for all of our belongings so we had to have our cases half full of clothes which is not ideal. Although in certain people's instances they resorted to a permanent ''floordrobe'' which is where the clothes live in a mess on the floor, so be prepared for that.

Floordrobe- I no longer live here

I have since moved in to a room that used to be known as the Harry Potter room due to its resemblance in size to a cupboard under the stairs. Its now known as the cupboard or the closet.

'Hilarious' comments are made about me coming out of the closet each morning... and then me changing my mind and going back in at night. But in all fairness it is nice, to have a space of my own which I can keep clean and decorate with science themed art work which I make at work, even if the dimensions are about 2x2 meters. I don't have a bed in there, just a mattress, but it does the job.

The tiny cupboard

One big advantage to living here is that it is the only staff accom that is not shared with guests. Some of our friends have a room inside a chalet which, whilst being much nicer than our place, means that they have to tiptoe around guests and even go past them in the living room in order to get to their bedrooms.

  Therefore we have much more freedom to do as we please here. After coming back from skiing in Italy with Rachel on my day off yesterday, I returned to the Palace. I was perfectly ok to stumble in, drunk, to lads on the balcony with beers and music, take all of my clothes off and bask in the sun. This would probably be deemed unacceptable in front of guests that are paying a grand for the week. (Political correctness gone mad).

  We can misbehave most of the time which does include liberty with regards to nudity. Mainly Michael and I are the nudists of the group, but with our new open door policy with the bathroom, everyone is welcome. This is useful when people are getting ready for a night out because showering can happen in chorus with sink-side grooming- so its really a nice atmosphere.

"He frequently drenches the toilet floor with jets of mis-aimed piss"

Another great feature is the balcony we have which shows amazing views of the mountain landscape. Its really peaceful when you wake up for work and are graced with such natural beauty on a clear day. For me, a bit part of living here is enjoying the natural beauty.

View from my balcony.
Click on the picture to see how good it really looks.

The loveable Buffoon Jimbo (who complains that he does not get mentioned despite us spending a lot of time together) and I had a great Saturday evening chilling on the balcony recently. Bear in mind that Saturday is the day before transfer day, so unlike in England we never ever go out on a Sat. Instead we bought some beers, made a fridge out of snow and enjoyed the views as the sun went down.
        We discussed life in the universe (agreeing that it is there but we will probably never meet), various cosmological topics and having a chilled out and appreciative attitude to life. Its nice sometimes to do something different and take the time to enjoy where you are and what you are doing.

Stuff I won't mention in this add:

Be aware that there is a rogue known as the Palace pisser who frequently drenches the toilet floor with jets of mis-aimed piss. As you would not hope, this mystery douche bag never cleans up after himself and never owns up.

It does get pretty messy here with so many of us living in a small space, and unfortunately not many people give loads of shits. I have tried to tame the situation by making a cleaning rota for the kitchen and bathroom but its not always adhered to.

  Lack of hot water is sometimes a problem since as well as all of the guys usually wanting a shower after work, sometimes the girls want to use our shower too. This does result in either cold showers or (as said by Samuel Karl Austin) 'Italian' showers which involve use of the kitchen sink. Sometimes there are benefits to this, such as when two girls had to share a towel and shuffled out of the bathroom and down the corridor together wrapped in the single towel.

Also if you're freakishly tall like Ollie you may have to resort to sitting down like him because the ceiling is slanted and not designed for people over 6'2''.

Our neighbours have no tolerance for noise at all and they hate us. I do understand that when people return from a night out slamming doors and shouting, it is unacceptable. I can't abide by their knocking on our doors at 9.30 on a Friday night expecting no music to be on or no rowdiness to be occurring.

Sometimes their lack of tolerance is such that they call the police or our resort manager, Simon, to come up and talk to us. We have been told that if the police come again then whoever is awake will be fined 250 Euros each, which is a bit extreme/worrying. 

Once Simon came up to rip in to us and it was my birthday. This was a special Sunday night occasion where we were at the girls Palace being dressed up in ladies' clothing, so admittedly there was a lot of raucous noise. Roberto was being dressed up as Miley Cyrus, Michael was trying on thongs and I was trying on a leotard, so it was quite hilarious. After being cross dressed we returned to the boys' Place for some Malibu mixers and a playlist of songs such as 'Girls just wanna have fun' 'More than a woman' and 'Dude looks like a lady'.

Understandably on this occasion we were being quite loud at 11 and it was a Sunday. There was a knock on the door which Michael answered in full drag, not breaking a smile as he greeted the officer. Then Simon came up, livid, to a room of guys in dresses and make up, ear rings, hair bows and heels. The best thing was that he was so irate that his face did not waver from utter menace the whole time he was up there. We did see him later in the pub and as he was not at work then, he was very nice.

All in all it is a cool place to live, and I think that everyone apart from Roberto enjoys living here. As always, its not like real life, its a bit strange with the mountains right in front of us and the fact that our jobs are so easy and fun. Its an existence that cannot last forever but I'm going to enjoy it while it does.


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