Well, I finally stayed in a hostel.
Whatever you're imagining about my first experience in a hostel... it's probably accurate.
I was coordinating a kids camp in Arbroath, Scotland back in April, a quaint little town along the coast of the North Sea, about an hour by train from Edinburgh, where I first stayed in a hostel.
I arrived with my two awesome volunteer helpers a few days early,
A) to recover from jet lag before I would be
managing other peoples' children for a week,
and
B) to use as a precaution in case my luggage/camp-in-a-suitcase
got lost on the way to Scotland
(which did indeed happen on the way home from Scotland,
thank goodness it wasn't before).
We booked a one-night stay in a hostel before we needed to travel up to Arbroath, because that's what you do in Europe. You stay in a hostel.
right?
You know, I do have a rugged, walk through the dirt and maybe *maybe* don't wear makeup on a campout side to me...
HowEVER, I typically gravitate toward the
hostels hotels that come with plush pillows, bathrobes, and extra bolts on the doors.
Sidenote (on the side of the page, hee) -
our second hostel stay after camp was uh-maze-iiing (vibrato)
and I could've lived there if for some reason I needed to stay in Edinburgh forever.
Here are a few photos of our second hostel.
Isn't it dreamy??? We even had our own kitchen!
Let's talk about My First Stay in a Hostel, though, of which I don't have a photo and wish I did.
In Edinburgh, Scotland, most of the buildings are very old and beautiful, lots of stone and rock and grays. The entrances to shops and restaurants vary because it seems to be the part that
can vary, since everything is pretty much stone and gray and old. Some doors are charming and cobalt, some are tiny and red; some are modern, and some look like you are about to walk into a perfectly Scottish pub, which you probably are about to do. But when we walked up to our first hostel,
the doorframe was covered in graffiti.
Okay,
that's okay.
It's cool, it's a cool hostel for adventurous backpackers.
...Was I on an adventurous backpacking vacation? Umno. I was bringing camp wrapped up in a Vera-Bradley bag to KIDS! =D
We walked in and proceeded to carry camp-in-a-suitcase up 4 flights *4 flights* of a spiral staircase.
seriously, though.
The walls were covered in "artwork"... graffitied caricatures of aliens dressed in 90's garb smoking weed. Hm, charming.
Rooms are for four, we were only three. Chances of a random man staying in the extra bed? 100%. No, he was not the future husband we were all hoping for.
Needless to say, I didn't shower in the freshman-dorm style community bathroom that night, and I slept with my Vera Bradley bag around my arms. The guy that stayed with us (slept in the bunk below me) ended up being a nice, normal definitely-a-talker college student on holiday break. He left before any of us got out of bed the next morning, and we all agreed that we think he was rattling plastic bags before he left just to see if it would wake us up. it did.
Once we were all up and at 'em, we had three remaining hours in Edinburgh before we needed to catch the train to Arbroath. We chose this hostel because of its prime location, and because they allow travelers to leave their bags in the check-in room.
The check-in area had about 18 other cool adventurous backpacks all lined up in this tiny room, and then I wheeled in my GIANT red camp-in-a-suitcase with its paisley, floral bright pink Vera Bradley companion atop it. It reminded me of Cameron Diaz's character in The Holiday, when she arrives in Surrey, England wearing stilettos and lugging her huge suitcase and fancy carry-on bag through ice and snow until she reaches the tiny, cozy cottage. It just looked a little out-of-place. I knocked over three separate items off the shelf and desk just trying to walk into the room. The Scots laughed.
Oh well, we laughed, too and carried on with our day.
And that my friends, was my not-so-eventful, dramatized, typical-kt First Stay in a Hostel story.
