Disclaimer, this post is merely an observation. I have loved each hostel I have lived in for different reasons. After just two different hostels though, it has become very apparent that the type of hostels available for certain destinations are dependent upon the destination themselves. I know most of you are thinking “DUH Laura”. I guess I just didn’t think it was going to be such a drastic difference.
Bondi was definitely a beach party hostel. Almost everyone in the hostel wanted to party every night til the wee hours of the morning and lay out on the beach everyday nursing hangovers from the night before and getting tan; College kids who came to Bondi to party on holiday. Not many wanted to walk along the coastal beach walk, or go into the city to sightsee. Not to mention most of them are between the age of 18-21 and from the UK (the country not the college).
The view from my room in Bondi.
Tasmania on the other hand was what I think of as a ‘typical hostel’, hikers and backpackers, individuals who were looking for a more nomadic way of life. I found the guys in Tasmania to be much more approachable and willing to explore than in Bondi. Many of the individuals at The Pickled Frog (hostel) in Hobart were there on work visas making their way around Australia, as they worked. It’s a very interesting concept. Maybe I just got lucky, but I hope the rest of my hostels are more like The Pickled Frog.
I feel like I’m back in college again, it’s kind of hilarious! Hostels are like adult dormitories. Already I have been labeled the “organized” one. I have my different compression bags for all my different types of clothing, I fold my blanket up every morning, and in general keep my stuff fairly organized under my bunk. De-militarizing myself might be a little harder that I expected after 12+ years.
So the look on my face had to be hilarious when one of my first roommates in Bondi came in with a suitcase ready to explode and 3 different larger purse bags. She walked in, plopped her bags in the middle of the room, and began to frantically toss articles of clothing left and right in search of the “perfect” shirt she was going to wear out tonight, to impress “one of the guys” she had just met at the hostel. I’m pretty sure I sat there in utter disbelief as once she found said shirt, she began to frantically stuff everything back into the already bulging suitcase, nevermind that I’m pretty sure even if the shirt wasn’t hers, it went back into her bag. Getting the bag 2/3rds of the way closed, she turned to the mirror, quickly applied some makeup and ran out the door, leaving the half exploding bag right in the middle of the already cramped room. Did I mention that was the first time she had come into the room? First impressions left me shocked and chuckling, was this going to be every hostel? We didn’t see this chick, I would use her name, but never got it, until 0430 the next morning as she tried to crawl in bed with me until I told her, as politely as I could, in my ‘woken up at 0430’ voice, that she had the top bunk, to which she mumbled something unintelligible, and after a few failed attempts at the ladder finally managed to make it into the upper bunk. Good luck to you girlfriend, I hope you get lucky with that guy.
It’s amazing though how easily it is to walk into a room and become instant best friends with at least one person in the room. Everyone is so friendly and helpful! In Hobart I met a Belgium girl named Lise (pronounced Lisa). Immediately she invited me to dinner with the other friends she had met along the way. Lise had been in Tasmania for a week already, so right away she told me what I needed to see and which tour to take and where to find them. Lise and I ended up wandering around Hobart the next afternoon and cooking dinner together that night where she taught me how to make a Belgium style dinner that she had learned growing up. She was a 23 yo au par who had been working and travelling Australia for the last 17 months. Instantly though we became friends and hopefully I will be able to visit her in Belgium this fall. It’s crazy how quickly people connect and you don’t feel like you are travelling alone anymore. I made a similar friend in Bondi. Hopefully the rest of my trip will be like this, meeting new friends, learning about other people and their cultures and sharing together in our solo experiences! I can see the attraction of traveling indefinitely; it is a very rewarding experience. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to do this and someday I hope that my kids will want to travel and explore as much as I do. The lessons learned are sometimes hard to learn but they are so amazing!