Trials, Tribulations and Observations

The Trials and Tribulations of Hostelling as Recounted by Serena

The Lack of Sleep
Staying in hostels is a cheaper way to travel and you meet more people that way but let’s face it, you don’t get much sleep and you meet some very....let’s go with ‘interesting’, people.

In New York City we met up with Rachel from our trek and the three of us were booked into the Big Apple Hostel. The location was great (right off Times Square), dorms were reasonably clean, bathrooms were pretty good and it had a small courtyard and kitchen. What is the one thing that you can’t control in these situations??? Who is sharing the dorm with you.

Our first two nights were spent sleepless due to the very loud, bed shaking, earth moving happenings coming from the bed above me! I know what you’re thinking....SNORING! It was sooo loud that even with my earphones in and music playing I could still hear the air getting trapped through their nose and chest as they tried to breath in. I don’t know if I felt sorrier for myself or the air particles trying to make their way through the clearly difficult passages to the lungs...it must be quite a journey.

I got up, turned the air conditioning down, again got up and went to the toilet, later still I sat on the floor and did some stretches. Heidi then got up and went to the toilet practically slamming the door on the way out and in which did allow for 4 seconds silence. Rachel tossed and turned eventually letting her frustration show by saying “Jesus” and we all realised that the three of us were wide awake. At some point we eventually fell asleep and when it was time to get up it was with bleary eyes and the feeling that somehow we had been awake all night. We were greeted by our fellow roommate with a cheery “Good morning” and when we replied with a sleepy “good morning” she couldn’t understand why we were all so tired when we should “be up and ready to go”. I really wanted to launch her mattress down the staircase the second night in order to get a good night’s sleep but I was reminded by Heidi that I was not in Japan travelling with Leisje and as such my actions could cause some trouble.


The Clueless
In Boston, Heidi and I were put into different rooms for our first two nights and then we changed into another room together for the last two nights. I was assigned the top bunk (in my first room) and so happily nodded off to sleep that night. At 1am I was awoken by a very tall man standing next to my bed peering at me and saying “hello” in an English accent. He introduced himself, I introduced myself, he asked where I was from, I replied Australia and then he continued to talk to me about how he had been out and came across this huge hammock that everyone was lying in and he was on his way out again if I would like to join him. I politely declined his offer and mentioned that I had been asleep and intended to go back to sleep. He left, leaving the door wide open, I closed it. Two minutes later he was back, peering over my railing and asking me if I could wake him up in the morning if he was not awake by 8.30. I said sure and he continued to talk although I have no idea what he said.

Heidi’s night was disastrous. At 2am she eventually went to the front desk (in her pyjamas, Yes, it was that bad!) to complain that the air conditioning in the room was broken and she was about to suffocate (she was horrified that they guy on the front desk was cute and she showed up in her pyjamas, WITHOUT any lipstick on!). The five people in her room were moved to another (which smelled). The following day, we were assured that the air con would be fixed however it wasn’t and Heidi had another sleepless night out on the couch in the hallway.

The Outright Strange
Our second room was much more comfortable and on our last night we met a gentleman (Tony) who was about 60 yrs old and quite nice. He was checking out the same day as us but leaving at 6.30am. We had a late night that night staying up till 2am chatting with both Tony and Harley (very funny Brazilian guy!). Tony was busy packing his bag as and due to Harley’s hunger we went out to the closest 7/11 to get some snacks (aaah the joys of being on holiday). At 5.30am Tony was awake and preparing to leave, yet again packing his bag, getting changed, getting changed again, re-packing his bag, in and out of his locker.... I’m not quite sure how many times he changed his outfit and opened and closed the locker or what exactly was in the many or one plastic bag he managed to rustle the whole morning but after an hour he left. I looked over and saw Harley with the pillow over his head! Heidi then leaned down from the top bunk and asked me for a gun. I offered the use of my well equipped swiss army knife but she didn’t take it.

Observations on the USA

1) Growing ‘em tall
I’m not sure what is in the water over here but it strikes me that the States has quite a lot of very tall men. This got me thinking one day (clearly I had nothing better to do!) how it was that Australia doesn’t seem to have as many tall men as the USA??? Is it just that the population is so much larger then Australia that the frequency is higher? Is it really something to do with their diet or were the convicts that were sent to Australia all just short? I could be onto something here...it would be hard to be a thief if you were tall wouldn’t it? It’s not like you could blend into the crowd as you were running away. Then I realised that 8 wks of not using my brain is starting to take an effect and immediately ceased that thought process.

2) Signage: What the?
Signage in the USA makes me think of Rove’s “What the?” segment. Simple things like the words “Pull to operate” on the doors. That got me wondering if a door was really something that you “operate”. I had always thought you operate heavy machinery or a doctor operates on a patient, I would never put down on my CV “can operate doors”. Is there a need to have the extra two words to explain? If so why are so many doors missing this instruction and simply left blank with no Push or Pull on them at all?
One of the first signs that made me laugh was when we were horse riding at Eastons. I came across a road sign that had “Road is unfinished”. I was wondering if it just meant that the road was not sealed or if you would be driving along and suddenly the road would disappear, like a train track that was unfinished? As you can imagine, the picture that was in my head make me laugh.

3) Hazardous Hazardlights
How many times do you see people in Australia driving with their hazard lights on? When I was learning how to drive I was told that the hazard lights were to be used in cases such as your car is broken down, or there is a problem with the car so you have to drive slowly. These were the kind of situations I was lead to believe warranted the use of your hazard lights. I swear every second car here has its hazard lights on! Is it an obsession over here? The one that really took the cake for me was when I was walking down the street and saw a car driving with its hazard lights on, I watched as the car got closer to me wondering what the problem could be, only to see that the driver was eating his burger with both hands and no hands on the steering wheel! I guess that is cause for the hazard lights!

4) To Flush or Not to Flush? That is the question!
Public toilets are never a fun thing to use but they are a necessary part of any city or roadhouse. Public toilets (or restrooms as they are referred to here) give pretty good first impressions in the States. Firstly there are so many different kinds of toilets you need a degree to work out how to operate each one. Each has it’s own flush operating system. There are no doors that you have to push or pull “to operate” (haha!) to enter the main toilet building as they have strategically made you walk around the corner, past a wall to enter. Hygienic yes? There are paper toilet seat covers provided for them, again hygienic and even many toilets flush automatically for hygiene purposes. Then there are the taps, they are censored to turn on automatically, the soap dispenser is automatic and the paper towel dispenser is automatic – not a germ to be touched! Or if there is only a hand dryer they are super powerful and move the skin around on your hand when it blows them dry so they actually are dry when you’re finished! No wet hands here when walking out!

You know how there is normally at least one toilet in public toilets that is blocked?...well in America there is usually 3 out of 5 blocked. For the first 2 days I was beginning to think that Americans just don’t believe in flushing the toilet (this is for the non automatic flushers)! Strange I thought....then I started to come across many toilets that you need to flush several times because the “flush” has NO strength in it! I still could not however figure out what was going on with the automatic flushers? Do they just not work very well?

One of the things I like is that seat covers are provided and whilst I choose not to sit on public toilet seats, I always have that fear that I am somehow going to loose my balance and fall onto the toilet seat. So with this in mind I always put down a seat cover... Remember that this was a new experience for me (the seat cover being provided that is) and over the first 2 weeks I lost many a seat cover into the toilet whilst I was trying to place the thing on the seat! So sometimes it would take me 2-3 covers before I was successful. Then of course, there is the question of how does the toilet know when to flush?? Several times I have been waving my hands and dancing about the sensor on the toilet in order to get it to flush (mental imagines anyone!), I then of course realised that the reason there are so many toilets that are not flushed is because nobody else takes the time to dance around the toilet like a goof in order to make it flush! Oh they joys of public ‘Restrooms’ in the USA.