Clean Exits and Colts

Hostels tend to bring in some strange characters. It always tends to make the days full of interesting conversations some you are intrigued by but some you are trying to duck out of as soon as an opening arises. The worst are forced conversations from people that are all in the same area at the same time but have nothing in common. Usually you can find something to talk about because you are all traveling, searching for something, maybe yourself, your roots, or just trying to have a new and exciting experience. This usually means that hostels are filled with young travelers who are hitch hiking, biking, or taking public transport from town to town and country to country. Occasionally you get the odd traveler that doesn’t fit this bill. This can usually be defined by an older couple, a family or a single traveler who is in their late thirties or forties who is generally socially awkward.

Older couples, meaning late fifties, (mom and dad you are not there yet don’t worry) seem to come in with tours, they didn’t necessarily read the fine print on Orbits about their accommodation but now that they are on the tour they tough it out because they don’t want to seem like a lame Grandma and Grandpa to their group. The wife is furious with her husband for being a cheap bastard and signing them up for this trip that is meant for teenagers who want to get drunk. She is to proud when she gets back home to tell her friends that she had a horrid time and she had to share a shower with filthy hitchhikers. Her husband is loving it because he is surrounded by young ladies who wear skimpy cloths and he has an excuse to go to a pub every night, just like he is back in College. This will be his last hurrah because he know as soon as he gets back to the States he is on lock down and my be permanently on the couch so he is living it up, getting tipsy and dancing with the young girls who think of him as a creepy uncle.  

Families in hostels are a bit odd, usually they are doing something like biking all over the country as a family. While I was in Kilkenney there was a family staying at my hostel from France that were doing just that. They had a baby and two young boys, the boys had bikes for themselves and the baby was in a little buggy behind the dads bike. They all looked so skinny and malnourished on their diet of brown rice and lettuce that I wanted to sneak the kids a candy bar so that they wouldn’t pass out half way to their next destination. Although this is a cool idea, who the hell does it with a baby, I mean come on, a baby in a buggy…

But the most out of place is the single travelers that are not in their teens or twenties. Who are they and what are they doing? Why are they staying at a hostel? Do they have a job? Why are they trying to make conversation with eighteen year old girls who just got out of high school and wanted to come to Europe so they could meet cute young boys with accents and drink legally. I guess this isn’t as bad if you are a woman, you can get away with it better but if you are a middle age man staying at a hostel why are you really there? I mean really at least stay in a B+B and  you wont seem as desperate for attention. Some seem harmless and easy to brush off but then there are some such as a gentlemen who I met tonight from Kansas City who came in on a tour full of young students from Australia and the US.  

I was in the hostels common room reading my book and eating my dinner of rice, beans and red peppers and these two girls an American going to school in Davis and an Australian girl were talking about voting. Our Davis Design major, being a stereo typical American had never registered or voted because she didn’t want to get jury duty. Funnily enough that didn’t pan out because she got it anyway, ha! The Australian girl seemed appalled as did I. I chimed in that I had dodged out on my jury duty due to my travels. Our conversation then went down the typical path of:  where are you from? How long have you been here? Where are you going?  And our Australian friend wanted to know if it was safe to travel as a single woman in the US. At this point our Kansas City fellow chimed in. This gentlemen was our stereo typical middle aged man from Kansas, balding, overweight, accent with lots of “y’alls” thrown in there. There was just one difference, he was Jewish.

 A Jew in Kansas who would have thought. Now to be quite fair as he continued talking he claimed he was from Israel…humm… he was clearly from the US in the beginning of our chat, but now since he is Jewish he comes from Israel. Now honestly what is with that, I keep meeting Jews that claim they are from Israel but look, talk and act like Americans. If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and acts like a duck it is  usually an American Jew from Israel….WTF… Am I missing something? Yes Israel is the “Father Land” so to speak, but really, come on, that is like me saying that I am from London or Granada when my family has not lived there for, well, hundreds of years. If you grew up somewhere and your parents grew up there in my book that is where you are from. Your ancestors may be from Israel or Granada or maybe you still have third cousins there but if you grew up in New Orleans, you can speak Creole and make a mean Jambalaya that is where you come from!

For the time being we will give our Kansas Jew a break. He had some relevant points to make about how some areas are better than others and that no lady should be out alone at night no matter where you go. Davis and I agreed but then the conversation took an interesting turn towards Texas. This is always a touchy spot especially if you have two Northern California’s in the room. I try and shy away from Texas as much as humanly possible because people for some reason either love it or hate it. Having never been there I just know the stereo types of cowboys and the Bush family. But our Kansas Jew from Israel informed us it was defiantly a safe place for a woman to roam freely in her travels as long as she carried a hand gun. To quote our friend, “God made man and woman and Samuel Colt made them equal.”

This is when I started looking for my excuse to exit.

Snoring and Sterio Types

I believe that I am a fairly easy person to get along with. I am not very high maintenance compared to most girls and I don’t easily get angry or upset about things. I tend to believe that it is a waste of time to be upset about most things especially when they are out of your control.  If you asked my parents they may say differently... Seamus the grounds keeper at Dunbrody Country House Hotel called me the “Sunny Californian” not only in reference to where I grew up.  I try to surround myself with people that are upbeat and to bring up those around me in the process. But although I try to keep my “sunny” disposition, it can be clouded by a few elemental things.

The first of these would be not getting a good night sleep. Last night happened to be one of those occasions. I had been staying at a lovely hostel that doubled as a guest house in Waterford. The place was great especially when I was the only one in my room!! It was absolutely fantastic the first few nights then last night I had company that ended up being disastrous. There was a lovely German girl who was about twenty and was traveling by herself around Ireland, a French gentlemen from outside of Paris and an Irish guy from Dublin.   

The Dubliner was a chain smoker who couldn’t be without a cigarette and brought wafts of smoke into the room at all hours. He slept during the day, in the nude without paying much attention to where the blankets were! And stayed awake until all hours chain smoking. Even though he was not in the room and most likely was standing at the door when he smoked it didn’t matter. Smokers don’t seem to understand that standing at an open door is almost just the same as being inside while smoking. The smoke just blows back in and we all get to breath it and smell like it and die slowly.

The German Girl was great. She was out going, interested in where to go, what to see and all of the touristy things I could help her with. She was a typical hostel traveler, young, on holiday for the summer, geared up with a backpack and a positive attitude.

Our French man on the other hand was an interesting fellow. He was most likely in his mid forties, traveling by himself, unmarried and didn’t speak much English. Now the French are a strange bunch, if in a group they stay to themselves and simply ignore all of those around them with a blatant aragent attitude of self righteousness. The refuse to speak any language but their beloved French, which is the most beautiful language in the world according to them, and they believe that they should be waited on hand and foot because simply it is expected.

 I was lucky enough to live with two French boys who were studying to be chefs for the past month. In fairness they were 18 years of age but it opened my eyes to what males of the French culture believe. Everything that is French is a step above the rest of the world. This is not simply a joke, but in actuality this is what they believe. Sometimes you can think that their pride for their own culture is beautiful but then you realize that not only do they think that French things are better but they actually go as far as to believe that everything else is shit. French food, French wine, French women. French cloths, French autos (which I have a hard time figuring out…) French artists, French musicians, French actors (another fairly difficult one) and of course just the French landscape is more beautiful, more lush and simply better then anywhere else.

After some time this arrogant attitude about everything French first becomes comical but then quickly annoying and down right rude. But mostly in the case of the two boys that I was living with it was plainly naïve. They had been brought up to think and behave this way so they do. Every culture is guilty of “hand me down” opinions from generation to generation and the French still must channel the arrogance of Marie Antoinette and her famous line, “Let them eat cake.”

But back to the real subject-The French man in the hostel, he was nice enough and tried to make conversation a bit but mostly said, “yes” and “ok” which seem to be French “go to” words that they have been taught to say after everything you tell them. This can be very entertaining and dangerous for them and incredibly hilarious for us English speakers.

 When it was time for bed I made my way to the bedroom and red my book for a while. Our character of the week, the French man came in a little while after me and had a bunk bed directly across from me. He settled in while I was still reading and climbed in his bed. Once in his bed he continued to make little noises, sighing and sniffling and groaning. Right when you get into be this is explainable but a half hour after you have settled down it is a bit strange. I proceeded to grab my ear plugs to help drowned out the noise. It happens to be one of my pet peeves when people “over sigh” and make weird noises. It was almost as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t because he didn’t speak English so he made little noises to himself or to me and I was suppose to understand and squeak or gurgle in return.

This proceeded after my ear plugs went in and I closed my book for bed. All of a sudden right as I am drifting to sleep what to I hear but a freaking lawn mower crossed with a dump truck rumbling in beside me. Oh my god! It was absolutely offensive. I have never heard something so loud coming from something that was asleep in my life. I am not a stranger to snoring, my father, and mother, (sorry mom) do it and we use to call Sal a chain saw because we could hear him down the hall but this was amazing. People that snore that loud should not be aloud to stay in hostels. I couldn’t sleep for hours because of this man. So around two in the morning,( note I went to bed at eleven) I got out of bed and went into the kitchen for a while and had two cups of tea to try and calm myself down. I was beyond tired and pissed almost to the point of waking him up and yelling at him. I hate to admit that I had murderous tendencies last night but there was a point when I thought maybe it would be ok to just place a pillow over his head to shut him up.

 So now we had the champion snorer and a room that smelled of smoke and I was not a happy camper. Finally I think I feel asleep out of necessity and pure exhaustion.  In the morning I asked the German girl how she slept and she gave me a look that said it all. She had experienced the same murderous tendencies that I did. We were both astonished that he had not sought help in that department. If I had started dating someone like that there is no way I would be sleeping in a ten mile radius of them if they sounded like that! No wonder he was unmarried! To make matters worse when he woke up he did his weird sigh gurgle grunt things again. I got out of there as fast as I could and jumped into a cold shower ugg the hostel life...

I enjoyed my stay in Waterford for the most part and got to see some amazing things such as the tall ships coming through, Waterford Glass, traditional Irish music and just a lovely city but I can’t say I would want to be there again tonight for a repeat with our lovely character of the week.