Friday, March 21, 2008

Have a Good Friday

I had been looking forward to my first weekend since arriving in The Hague. It will be a four-day weekend, on account of Friday (Good Friday) and Monday (Easter Monday) also being holidays. During weekends, I used to miss my breakfast while in IBC Diamond District as I never left bed before the 10 AM deadline. Here, I had the luxury of sleeping even late as a pamphlet in my room informed me that breakfast will be available till 12 noon on Sundays and Public Holidays.

So at 11 AM today, I found myself visiting the breakfast room for, umm, breakfast. What was weird was that there were no people in the breakfast room. What was even weirder was that THERE WAS NO BREAKFAST. With not even any waiter around to explain what happened, I didn't have any difficulty deciding to pay a visit to the neighborhood McDonald's (Yeah, they ask for payment) and force some junk food down my food pipe.

On my way out, from the corner of my eye, I saw the receptionist greet me "Good Day". I had a nagging suspicion that she must be knowing the reason behind what happened and I found myself explaining my breakfast room visit to her. Very politely, she informed me that breakfast is only available till 10 AM on Fridays. Equally politely, I informed her that today happens to be a Good Friday. Confused, she rang her supervisors and explained the situation to them. After hanging up, she informed me that Good Friday is NOT a Public Holiday.

Well, yeah, Easter is. I decided not to argue and moved on. As I left the reception, she said "Have a good day, sir".

Goede Vrijdag to everyone!