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.