the hostel
Jun. 20th, 2006 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyThis was the first time in 7 years of international travel that I'd stayed in a youth hostel. I'd always rather wanted to, because it's such a proto-typical "young person in Europe" thing, and I wanted to before I was no longer young enough to enjoy it! I hence have nothing to compare with, but I had a great experience. I was in a room with three bunk beds, and it turned out that all six of us in there all arrived Tuesday afternoon and evening; I was the third person in. Two girls, Kristina and Sabrina, from Montreal were already there, sleeping off their jet lag. They'd arrived for a few days in Paris, to be followed up with a jaunt through Spain, for a total of about a month. One of the other hostels I'd originally tried to get a room in (but it was full) was gender-segregated, and so for some reason I'd thought this one was too, so I was just a bit surprised when a knock on the door came, and I opened it, and it was a young guy, James from London, saying "Hi, I'm your new roommate." He ended up being the only guy in a roomful of girls (Robin arrived next; she's from TN, but had just finished 6 months studying in Budapest and was traveling on her way home, and Louisa from Melbourne who'd just arrived for four months backpacking across Europe). I have to say, there really is something for non-gender-segregation. I'm generally not a big fan of being thrown in amongst a bunch of girls which I don't know, because I never know how to make conversation with them, but there's just a different character to a group when there's a guy thrown in. Somehow, I ended up feeling instantly at home with all of them, and I sort of regret that I was occupied with the conference the entire time and didn't have an afternoon to go sight-seeing with them. These were definitely Good People (TM), especially James and Louisa.
There were a few moments when I felt particularly old, in an amusing way. Early Tuesday afternoon, when it was just Kristina, Sabrina, James, and I, we somehow got on the topic of marriage, et al, and K & S, who are both 19, said something to the effect of "I can't understand how some people can get married so young, like 22! Who'd want to be married so young?" So I had to laugh and tell them I'd gotten married at 22 and had been married for two years. They seemed a bit taken aback by that. The other moment was when all six of us were there, exchanging name/age/country/reason for being in Europe info, and James wanted us to guess his age. I pegged him at 18-25 definitely ranging towards the 18 end, whereas the other girls pegged him at 22-28, ranging towards the 28 end. He's 19. I feel old in that college-age boys are finally beginning to look young to me. I just thought it was funny that me who is 5 years older thought he was about his age, while those his agge and 2 years older thought he was older than me. :)
The hostel served breakfasts in the morning, but it was just a croissant and a roll (and some pretty nasty tea, though I think it was just the water it was made from), and even though they said it ran from 8:00-9:30, if you got there around 9:20, odds are, you'd get two slices of casino bread. I got to breakfast late on Wednesday and so that's all I got. By the time I got back to the room around 9:00pm, I was absolutely starving. Louisa had bought some couscous the night before (there was a rudimentary kitchen available - water boiler, microwave, sink, and some dishes), so we ran to the store next door and bought a can of veggies, and we made couscous and veggies. James had made a plate of pasta with sauce earlier, and when we got down there had nearly a full plate which he said he just couldn't eat any more of - so I polished that off and half the couscous/veggies. I felt much better after that. :) (I'd been going on pretty slim rations for meals otherwise, since I didn't want to spend that much money and food is EXPENSIVE in Paris, so I'd just brought along with four kaiser rolls, a bag of dried apricots, a jar of pickles, a bag of crunchy muesli, and a bag of mini-sausage sticks. Good, but not really enough to get 8 meals out of, not when breakfast is slim.)
Thursday night we all got in fairly early - around 9pm, and ended up just hanging out in the room gabbing and listening to Louisa's Australian pop on Robin's computer until nearly 1am. As I said, there is something highly amusing about throwing in one guy with five girls - at one point our conversation took a slightly feminine nature, and you could just see him turning redder and redder. I really shouldn't have stayed up late since I hadn't been sleeping well and had been tending to fall asleep during the second-to-the-last sessions each afternoon, but it was too much fun just hanging around with them. Like I said, these were Good People.
It turned out that James was heading up to Amsterdam after Paris. So I dregged my meager knowledge of interesting things in Amsterdam and the surrounding cities and write it up for him. I mentioned how I'd been to Spinoza's house recently, and he said that sounded interesting, so I told him if he went, he'd have to mention to the curator the two American girls who were there two weeks ago, because I'm sure she'll remember us. :)
There were a few moments when I felt particularly old, in an amusing way. Early Tuesday afternoon, when it was just Kristina, Sabrina, James, and I, we somehow got on the topic of marriage, et al, and K & S, who are both 19, said something to the effect of "I can't understand how some people can get married so young, like 22! Who'd want to be married so young?" So I had to laugh and tell them I'd gotten married at 22 and had been married for two years. They seemed a bit taken aback by that. The other moment was when all six of us were there, exchanging name/age/country/reason for being in Europe info, and James wanted us to guess his age. I pegged him at 18-25 definitely ranging towards the 18 end, whereas the other girls pegged him at 22-28, ranging towards the 28 end. He's 19. I feel old in that college-age boys are finally beginning to look young to me. I just thought it was funny that me who is 5 years older thought he was about his age, while those his agge and 2 years older thought he was older than me. :)
The hostel served breakfasts in the morning, but it was just a croissant and a roll (and some pretty nasty tea, though I think it was just the water it was made from), and even though they said it ran from 8:00-9:30, if you got there around 9:20, odds are, you'd get two slices of casino bread. I got to breakfast late on Wednesday and so that's all I got. By the time I got back to the room around 9:00pm, I was absolutely starving. Louisa had bought some couscous the night before (there was a rudimentary kitchen available - water boiler, microwave, sink, and some dishes), so we ran to the store next door and bought a can of veggies, and we made couscous and veggies. James had made a plate of pasta with sauce earlier, and when we got down there had nearly a full plate which he said he just couldn't eat any more of - so I polished that off and half the couscous/veggies. I felt much better after that. :) (I'd been going on pretty slim rations for meals otherwise, since I didn't want to spend that much money and food is EXPENSIVE in Paris, so I'd just brought along with four kaiser rolls, a bag of dried apricots, a jar of pickles, a bag of crunchy muesli, and a bag of mini-sausage sticks. Good, but not really enough to get 8 meals out of, not when breakfast is slim.)
Thursday night we all got in fairly early - around 9pm, and ended up just hanging out in the room gabbing and listening to Louisa's Australian pop on Robin's computer until nearly 1am. As I said, there is something highly amusing about throwing in one guy with five girls - at one point our conversation took a slightly feminine nature, and you could just see him turning redder and redder. I really shouldn't have stayed up late since I hadn't been sleeping well and had been tending to fall asleep during the second-to-the-last sessions each afternoon, but it was too much fun just hanging around with them. Like I said, these were Good People.
It turned out that James was heading up to Amsterdam after Paris. So I dregged my meager knowledge of interesting things in Amsterdam and the surrounding cities and write it up for him. I mentioned how I'd been to Spinoza's house recently, and he said that sounded interesting, so I told him if he went, he'd have to mention to the curator the two American girls who were there two weeks ago, because I'm sure she'll remember us. :)
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Date: 2006-06-20 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 07:24 pm (UTC)When I was in Wales last summer, I had the opposite experience -- I stayed in a bed & breakfast for the first time in a couple years of traveling. It was just for a couple nights, in Pembroke, which I felt justified splurging on because I would be staying with friends the rest of my time in Wales and Spain. Wow, was it posh and comfy! Tea service in the room, humongous personalized breakfast with silver service in the morning, a bath....wow.