Sticking to the staircase

I got stuck in the hotel lift this morning. It was only for two minutes, but was about to feel like ten. Until they break, lifts don’t feel that small for me. The night before a friend had told me he hated them because he’d been caught in one as a child. At the time I thought I’d never been stuck. Not anymore.

Fortunately there was a nice man wearing a green turban who seemed to double as one of the hotel managers. He wasn’t worried and called someone to fix the problem. Then the fan stopped and the walls started to creep in. Finally, probably less than a minute later, I spotted some fingers and two of the hotel staff joined with their boss in pulling the doors open wide enough to let me out. Free at last.

Downstairs – I’m using them now – at breakfast I spotted a rat. Among some of the Australians fans this has become known as the hotel of rodents, but I’ve felt comfortable here, and still do. The rat was hanging from the beak of a bird in a tree outside the breakfast room. I didn’t feel like meat any more, so ordered vegetarian.