Alexandra Hall ('Alex Hall' or just 'Alex') is a privately-owned hall of residence for students at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
THE farthest uni-managed accomodation from the actual uni. It's literally the LAST building on the seafront, next to the Consti.
Looks a bit like this;
Built at least a hundred years ago as an all-girls hall. Then it fell into disrepair. Stayed like that for yonks, until some entrepeneur decided to buy it but never did anything with it. Then some private company bought it & made it semi-safe for students to live in again.
The renovated parts look nice & shiny, however on closer inspection it's obvious that renovation was carried out by mentally-retarded chimpanzees liberated from an animal testing facility in Western Samoa, who shopped at a cheap Russian imitation of Ikea. Things break & fall apart on a daily basis, & take yonks to get repaired. It took over 5 weeks for someone to repair a shower, after the first repair-job they did fell apart the very next day.
Renovation was meant to be quick. It wasn't.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/4371174.stm
During this renovation work, they completely ruined the nice social environment & hid all the period character behind cheap chipboard. It's now split into 4-6 bedroom flats, finished in sterile white. There's no social area whatsoever; no common room, no TV room, no bar - nothing. There is a laundrette in the basement though - the 4 washers are okay, but the 4 dryers will take your money, spin around for 50 minutes & your stuff will still be dripping wet.
A bar was supposed to open last year. It didn't.
FIRE ALARMS. In the 1st term at least daily. They always come at the most inconvenient times; when you're in the shower; cooking dinner; having sex, etc. You then have to stand in the rain & the cold on the prom for yonks until the fire brigade arrive & bitch at you for wasting their time.
Some IS idiot put 802.1x authentication on the network. This creates utter hell in the first week of term, makes it really hard for Linux users, & prevents the use of a router to bypass the stupid 2 MAC address rule.
- this can be bypassed by running a machine with two NICs as a gateway, with the first NIC (with registered MAC) plugged into the wall & handling 802.1x, & the second NIC plugged into a switch & then all the rst of your machines.
- now confirmed to work (using a Win 2k pro box running ICS).
Also has Queen-size beds, which means any single fitted sheets you've brought won't fit.
- if you pay for the 'bedding set' at the beginning of the year they give you a bleedin' single fitted sheet!