CSI: Fresh Hotel and Hostel

OK. I'll start with this hotel adventure as it was the oddest and creepiest hotel experience I have had in quite some time.

First off-- Don't stay here. If you have a propensity for unintentional crime scene themed hotels, this may be the place for you, but other than that proceed at your own risk.

After arriving in NY at 11 p.m. after a 5 hour Bolt Bus extravaganza we (my boyfriend Renzo was with me on this trip) arrived at the Fresh Hotel and Hostel on the upper west side. ( FYI--This hotel/hostel/hellhole also goes by the name The Candy Hotel and Hostel - beware of it's aliases..aliai.??....no aliases....fuckit. Regardless beware).When I walked into the hotel I already knew we were in for..something..not sure what, but something. Every crazyfaced European NY hostel goer under 20 must have desended on this place at once.. all seeking free internet. The hallway was crammed with people sitting on the floor and wandering around aimlessly with their laptops balanced in various positions waiting for the errant phantom wireless signal to kick in. As we stepped over the hoards we finally made it to the front desk where we got our key. We were told that our room was next door in the adjoining building.Ugh. We heave ourselves back through the throngs and head to the next building down.. Ok..so things were a little weird but managable at this point. The other building was eerily silent with the exception of a random older Eastern European man wandering through the halls in a small towel....hmmm..ok. Weird, but still managable. We take the elevator up to the third floor (with our half naked friend) and make our way down the hall to our room.

I opened the door of our room and just stood there for a second taking it all in......

First of all, the bed was a complete disaster- mattress precariously dangling off the frame, sheets everywhere, pillows flung all over the place..needless to say the maid had not come by...but this was pretty tame compared to the bloodied (holy shit. what?! blood!) towels and tissues that were strewn all over the floor.There were also tissues and towels with other.. um.. stuff on them...who the fuck knows... The room also smelled so bad -like of the urine and beer family .
I had this vision of a maniacal-free-internet-seeking-europerson (or maybe couple) getting wasted in this room, overturning the bed in a drunken euphoric stupor (exclaiming something like "haHAAA!" while doing so), pissing on it (just 'cause), jumping up and down Golum-like and then realizing it would be a brilliant idea to bleed everywhere. I don't know why, but I truly believe this is what happened. Otherwise someone got wasted and got the shit kicked out of them and then pissed somewhere (just 'cause). Needless to say, we got the fuck out of there. We returned to the front desk, told the front desk man about the state of our room, returned our key, demanded a refund and faced the daunting task of finding a reasonably priced place to stay at midnight in NY. It was way too late to call friends or haul ourselves out to Brooklyn, so we were feeling quite screwed regarding our options.Thankfully, I have made a habit of recording all my travel information in one book, which saved our asses. One of the hotels in midtown (The Mayfair which is fucking excellent, and to which I shall forever be indebted) I had stayed at a couple weeks before had a room available for a decent price which was incredibly lucky.
The Not So Fresh Candy Hotel and Hostel has still not reimbursed me for the room. I currently have an ongoing claim against them (ugh). Fun in a bun.

I give this hotel a -5 stars.

Reviews Galore!

This is a whole new endeavor, but here goes. I was encouraged by friends to start a blog about my various travel experiences- specifically my travels from New York to Boston and back as I have been commuting up and down for the last few months. I've learned by trial and error the ways of the bus system as well as the ways of cheap accomodation. I hope to help anyone who wants the inside scoop on cheap NY hotels as well as transportation. In thinking about all this I decided to expand the reviews to other areas as well - theatre, dance, movies, restaurants, karaoke places, yoga studios- basically anything is up for grabs.I've got alot of catching up to do regarding all the NY travel and places I've stayed and the adventures therein..some somewhat comical and some not so comical..anyways...

Check back soon...