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Welcome to Delft! Ha ha, you're now in Delft! (part 2)

Welcome to The Moroccan Whorehouse!

See, in this hotel (which is remaining nameless because I hear the Dutch live to sue and I'm sure I've already cheesed off enough people at the Rick Steves Company with my previous travel logs) every room has a theme. I shan't recount the others, except for the Love Nest room with the round bed and the decor that would have made 1975 puke, but I will give you the details of mine.

The room my wife and I were assigned was ostensibly the "Southwest Room". This was the Southwest by way of someone who gathered his entire artistic inspiration from watching bad Westerns while smoking enough legal marijuana to floor an elephant. On one wall was a mural of an Aztec pyramid. One the wall behind the bed was a painting of a giant Mayan shield. Between these two tributes to artistic splendor was a collection of cowboy hats, cow skulls and other remotely Western-ish brick-a-brac that suggested whoever designed the room thought the Southwest started in Patagonia and ended in Saskatchewan.

I should mention the bathroom had no door. Specifically, the separate space containing the toilet had no door. Instead, it had a pair of those swinging doors like you see in old Westerns while you're smoking marijuana and designing hotel rooms. Those doors did nothing to aid in the privacy one expects when visiting the bathroom. Nor did the six-foot mirror on the opposite wall that was placed there apparently so you could look up and see what you're doing in case had you forgotten the why you were there in the first place.

Ok, so Southwestern theme, right? Except for reasons known only to the artist -- mad genius that he/she is/was -- the entire bathroom was covered in red-and-purple Persian-style tiles. The entire affect of the Arabic tiles was to give half the room the air of a Moroccan whorehouse. Not that I know of these things beyond a few Google Images searches for research purposes after my wife goes to sleep.

At least the bed was square.

On our last day, as we were walking on one of the quaint bridges over one of the quaint canals, my wife suddenly stopped and pointed in horror at the water. I looked over just in time to see a catfish with a body the size of a Yugo sucking down one of the many cute little ducklings that peppered the canal. Its little orange feet kicked and kicked as it went down the catfish's gullet before the fish settled into the muck at the bottom of the canal.

You're welcome to come up with your own analogy, but, being Delft, it was so very, very . . . quaint.

Posted by
11946 posts

Love reading Mike's commentary. However, am unable to not wonder if

Ok, first the good: the hotel features a wonderful bar with extraordinarily-cheap -- at times free -- booze

has something to do with the description of how 'eclectic' the room is. :-)

Posted by
21218 posts

Just 3 comments.
1. I didn't know Delft was in Belgium.
2. How does the OP know what the inside of a Moroccan whorehouse looks like.
3. Did the OP get any of those adorable souvenir blue-and-white plates?

Posted by
496 posts

Wait, Delft ISN'T in Belgium?

When did they move it?!

(also: there's a Netherlands forum, too?!)

Glad to be back, but sadly, no new adventures coming up until late September of 2019.

-- Mike Beebe

Posted by
14818 posts

Oh word Mike. Laughing so hard. Thank you for my laughter-based endorphins for the day!

Posted by
2252 posts

Echoing Pam's post! You really provide my day's entertainment-gotta get more of a life of my own? Seriously, I am enjoying every second of your tour and waiting (with bated or un-bated?) breath for your next posts. I do love laughing raucously (dictionary definition says that means "disturbingly....") out loud when only my dog and cat can hear me. That's probably a good thing.

Posted by
4684 posts

A few years ago there was a scientific paper published about catfish in Avignon that were launching themselves out of the river to eat pigeons drinking on the bank.

Posted by
496 posts

Laura,

I'm pretty sure there was a monster movie in the 50's where a giant flying catfish ate Bruges, so Delft better watch itself!

-- Mike Beebe

Posted by
50 posts

This may be the most off the wall post that I have seen. Can I get my 2 minutes back!