Exchange II: The Adventure Strikes Back

I’m starting to think that expensive things seem attractive
by virtue of knowing that they are expensive. As a part of my marathon 65 hour journey to my new exchange location, INSA Lyon in France, I was forced into spending a night in London. Having already spent over 12 hours of waiting at Heathrow Airport, I couldn’t be bothered finding a hotel so I decided to lash out and stay at the exorbitantly priced Sofitel which was only a short walk away.

Having never actually stayed at an expensive hotel before, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Sure I’ve wandered through some of the most expensive hotels in south-east Asia (Raffles, The Empire, Traders, Eastern & Oriental) but I assumed staying in one would be completely different. Unfortunately I was incorrect.

Whilst all of the aforementioned establishments have some sort of grandiose aspect to them to help justify spreading your wallets legs wide open for them, an airport hotel doesn’t exactly have the same seductivity levels to me. I don’t understand why anyone (unfortunately including myself) would pay a lot of money to stay there. But that’s not the worst of it.

When I first arrived at LHR I met a lovely Mauritian man on the train. We had a brief conversation and when we were parting ways he pointed out that he was staying at the Sofitel. At the time I thought it was weird, why would I care where he was staying?? I wasn’t exactly about to have intercourse with him. But it has now dawned on me that it is part of what you’re paying for; to be able to tell people that you’re spending a stupid amount of money on something you don’t need to spend the money on (like I’m doing now, I may as well get my money’s worth.) Some people shorten this and just call it a ‘status symbol.’

This wouldn’t bother me so much if you got a lot for paying a lot, but you really don’t. It seems to me that most of the money goes into the fine furnishings and appearances rather than any sort of service. These are the sort of things that you may want if it was your actual home (there was actually a brochure in the room selling most of the room) but you don’t really get to experience their long lasting quality in a one night stand. More alarming than what you get is what you don’t get. Relatively basic luxuries like movies, meals and drinks all cost extra. Bear in mind that these are things you would normally get for ‘free’ when flying cattle class with a non budget airline. Surely it wouldn’t be hard to squeeze these things into what I’m sure is an already slim operating margin.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I am now starting my second exchange at L’Institut National des Sciences Appliquées in Lyon. I am doing this Lyon/KL exchange combo in the opposite order to what my friend Alex did. So far I think she has prepared me well as far as not expecting too much, i.e. everything to be magical here. Because it would be possible to get that idea in your head based on people’s reactions to you telling them you’re going to France. It’s interesting because when you tell people (in Australia) that you’re going to Malaysia, they instinctively ask why you are going there. With la France, par contre, people tend to get a lot more excited for some reason. Anyway, as long as it’s not all about telling people you’re staying there I’ll be happy.

Skip to the end: I'm in France and slightly annoyed at myself for staying at an expensive hotel on the other side of la manche.