Fall 1992, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Myself and three other cohorts went up to Vancouver to support a couple friends of ours who were playing on a soccer team in a competition up there.
We were far from world travelers, but when we reached Vancouver we cruised around looking for a hotel where we might have a base of operations for the weekend. But not after filling up for what we thought was an outlandishly good price of $1.13.... but it was per liter and not gallon... we were 19, C'mon!
Four Jovial, 19-year-old, fresh face boys and one girl piled out of my friends car, a new Volvo sedan that was "The slowest car I had ever ridden in", into a hotel called Hotel Dufferin.
I was the only one with the debit card, so I paid. I wasn't much of a carouser at that time so I stayed in the hotel room while all the rest of them went out and had fun on the town where at our age, we were able to drink. I got a couple Cokes and watched Into the Eagles Nest while they partied.
We were very welcome and eyes seem to follow us everywhere as we all piled into our room and did our thing. I didn't feel we were being watched because anyone knew we were American or acting in any peculiar way.... there was just a lot of interest in us. Later that night, through the bottom of our floor, we could hear what sounded like a dance floor thump thump thumping away. It wasn't rock, it was louder than I was used to and I'm a metal head!
Everything was still copacetic until about three in the morning when one of my friends returned drunk on his feet to our room. Even though he was only two blocks from our hotel he needed a cab to get home. The cab driver laughed, pulled out off the curb and then immediately back to the curb and dropped him off. Easy hit.
It all fell into place when we woke his hung over self the next morning and the first thing he exclaimed was, "we have chose a gay hotel!"
The open arms for us received from other customers when getting a room, the eyes upon us as we walked through the hallways and in and out of the building. I can only imagine what they were thinking of the five kids in one small room! I'm pretty sure we were not in risk of have a piece of our asses taken but it was a time for action - we needed to drive further north to get to our friends match anyway.
We didn't have any run-ins, and we had nothing to gripe about when we left the next day… Except a few laughs at how innocent we were staying at what was obviously a well-known local haunt with tight pants, only men and many mustaches.
I still have the receipt somewhere, as a Momento of the night us five really tight friends (unafraid to swat each others asses and zero fear of our sexuality) packed into a room at a huge gay hotel.
Ah, The Dufferin (Doo-fer-Aaa) silent n. I'd go back, the cable was free.