A Hostel Experience

When we went to Scotland we didn't have a plan for where we would be staying; we decided to see what would appear to us. Fortunately, someone suggested a hostel that was little known by travelers but was a really great deal and at which lot of cool people stay. So, we checked in there, excited for what Scotland had in store for us. Unfortunately  my friends started disappearing and I didn't know what was happening to them, and it turned out other people were missing as well.  Oh wait... sorry... I think I'm confused. That's the 2005 horror film Hostel, not my actual experience.

But seriously, I didn't know what to expect. As you can imagine, given the fact that I haven't traveled to Europe before now, I've never stayed in a hostel before. I have heard so many things about hostels from the media, movies, friends and travel websites that nothing would surprise me because all of the bases were covered in the descriptions I'd heard before I traveled.

Then you have the name. Hostel. I don't know about you, but when I hear the word 'hostel' it just makes me think of the word 'hostile' like a hostile witness, or a hostile encounter. So yeah, that wouldn't instantly make me excited to stay at a hostel. But I can't blame the hostels for that. Really, I should blame whoever translated the German word "jugendherberge" into English as "youth hostel".  Long story short, I don't think that hostel is a very good name, marketing and otherwise. Just saying.

Anyway, moving on.

What I was expecting: a number of rooms filled with bunkbeds, and a massive shower room down the hall. I was expecting a very terrible bed with half a pillow and a light blanket. In my mind it would be super crowded, there would be no room for privacy and people wouldn't be especially nice.

In reality: I'm pretty sure our accommodations were better than our flat in Oxford. For starters, there was actual heat (yes, that's right, as I write this we still don't have heat in our flat) and the mattress is at least 3 times more comfortable than my mattress in our flat. Obviously our sleeping situation wasn't actually better than our flat in the sense that I get my own room in Oxford, but for the most part the hostel stay was a pleasant, event-free experience.

Photo courtesy of Austin.

We stayed in a 20 bed mixed dorm so it was a pretty large room. I was nervous about our room because I have a really hard time getting to sleep and I am really sensitive to noise as I try to get to sleep (strangely enough, once I'm asleep nothing really wakes me up). So I was afraid we'd have a snorer or unfamiliar noises that would keep me up. I can't tell you definitively whether this happened or not. I could not get to sleep the first night and ended up laying in bed for at least 2 hrs before finally getting to sleep. However, I'm not entirely sure what the problem was.

We went to sleep pretty early because we had been up since 6 and were pretty exhausted, and we had an early start planned for the next day. I usually have a pretty hard time getting to sleep before midnight or 1 anyway because of my strange body clock so it very well could have been that, but it also could have been the unfamiliar noises. Our hostel was located at the corner of a pretty busy street so there was a lot going on outside which I could hear. I heard a group of at least 10 drunk guys boisterously singing a Scottish song, a girl screaming for her friend and a lot of sirens. One thing I noticed was that there was never just one siren. Whenever sirens started there were at least three different vehicles with sirens. I'm not entirely sure why this was the occurrence but I thought it was kind of strange. The next day I bought some earplugs from the hostel (for only 50p!)  and I slept fine. I'm not sure if it was because I went to bed a little bit later and I was especially exhausted because I only got 5 hrs of sleep the night before or if it was because of the earplugs. But I don't think I'll take the risk again--I'll always remember my earplugs.

I can imagine that if you were there on a really busy weekend and every bed was taken that it might be a little overwhelming, but on the first night there were probably 7 or 8 other people, and on the second night there were only about 4 or 5 other people. There was a bathroom down the hall (there was one on every floor) with a large mirror, three showers and two bathroom stalls and you didn't have to wait long (or at all) to get access to a shower or toilet.

Photo courtesy of Austin.

Our hostel, Caledonian Backpackers, offered a number of perks included with our rate: free WiFi, free breakfast, computers or laptops to borrow, a Skype phone to call landlines in most countries for free, a bar and lounge, a kitchen where you can make your own food and more. I hadn't realized just how much of a social experience a hostel would be. Now that I think about it, it wouldn't make sense for a hostel to just have dormitories and nothing else, but I just wasn't expecting there to be so much space to hang out and exist in outside of your room.

There were a lot of people at the hostel that were travelling alone, but I do not think I would be very good at that. In the bar and lounge, people were talking and getting to know each other, but I'm a bit too much of an introvert to just walk up to somebody and start a conversation, or even keep a conversation going with a complete stranger. I can see how this sort of environment would be perfect for extroverts, however--there is so much for them to feed off of as the set up of the hostel easily facilitates the interaction of all of its guests.

We had a few conversations with a Canadian man from Winnipeg whose parents were born in Britain. He said he works about half the year in Canada and then comes to England to find work on off months.  He had been at the hostel for about a week and I don't think he yet had a plan for where he would go next. He asked us about a lot of things such as the Michael Jackson trial, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky trial that indicated that he was, interestingly enough, at least a year behind the times. We also explained to him how the American political system works--how bills are passed, how the Senate and House of Representative are elected, the power of the President and more. It was an interesting conversation, to say the least, and he was certainly an interesting man. Also of note: he said the word "like" a striking number of times for a man in his 30s.

Photo courtesy of Austin.

If I had to describe Caledonian Backpackers in one word it would be fun. The bathroom was painted in many shades of pink, there were murals covering the walls, there were cutouts of Totoro everywhere--at the front desk, at the bar, on the walls, you name it, he was there--and the entire vibe was fun and exciting. There was nothing simple about this hostel, and that's what made it such a great place to stay.

I know that Caledonian could be an exception--obviously not every hostel will be this nice, or this fun, or have this many perks, but it was a great first hostel experience to have.