Dorm Living and Other Things

Confusion

Sometimes one just feels like a horse’s ass. I misunderstood about the plans for today. When Eugenie wrote me that we were going to the King Pageant, a Czech Beer Restaurant, and then to the Castle Křivoklát, I did not realize that we were not going to Jirca and Eugenie’s country home and I had checked out of the hostel.

There would be no problem with the change in plans except there was no single accommodations available. It turns out  I was fortunate to get the last available bed in the hostel, the top bunk in a six bed mixed-sex dorm. To say I was not organized for this arrangement almost goes with out saying. Incidentally the dorm room is costing about $16 a night versus $44 for my other room.

Living Outside my Comfort Zone

See my bunk on top. Conditions are very tight.There are five women and one man staying in the room. How does that work for the guy who happens to have the bunk below me?

My locker is next to someone else’s bed, but I was able to score the chair across from the bunk and some hooks. I hope my eyeshades and ear plugs help me sleep tonight because tomorrow night I get to sleep on a train with another bunch of strangers.

The good news is one of my roommates is a lovely Taiwanese girl, I will talk about a little later on. But I am glad this is only for one night, it should be interesting.

After all, part of traveling is going outside my comfort zone and coping, right? Well here is one of those times.

Postscript: This blog never posted last night so I can tell you it was fine sleeping in the dorm. In fact there was something comforting about being with other people and sleeping.

FYI, this is the Breakfast / TV room. See Minnie on the right in the back? This is where I am writing this post, then I will go upstairs two flights to the dorm area and connect to WIFI. It doesn’t work in the basement because the walls are to thick.

People I Have Met at the Hostel U Melounu

I stay in hostels because it is a great place to met people. At Hostel U Melounu I have met a few interesting people.

The first couple of days there was Rose, JoAnn, and her daughter. They were from Australia. Rose and JoAnn have been best friends since before JoAnn’s daughter was born. They were traveling with JoAnn’s daughter to celebrate her 21st birthday.  They I liked them and sorry we didn’t get to do anything together in town. 

I sort of met my Japanese apartment mates. They were strange. This morning at breakfast they brought their luggage down to the tiny breakfast room, everyone was tripping over it. They also left a bunch of things in their room (which incidentally was twice the size of mine, with two chairs, it was much nicer, which is not a complaint but an observation, as I would rather be in my old room than the dorm.)

Last night I met two lovely Taiwanese college students on their way to France to study French. We spoke in a mixture of English and French as we somehow managed to cook dinner together in this tiny kitchen and ate together two flights down in the Breakfast / TV room.

I met a bunch of different college and post college men, one from Germany, another from China, and a couple of Mexican boys who had just graduated from UT (small world.)

I also struck up a transitory friendship with a Czech sculpture who lives in Ottawa. She turned me on to the Museum Kampa, the wonderful contemporary art museum here. When I told her how much I liked it, it turned out she had never been.

Today

By the way while the King’s Pageant was fun and Castle Křivoklát well worth the trip. It is about 45 minutes outside of town.  The Czech restaurant was very good and I enjoyed my mushroom soup and duck.

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Jirca and Eugenie also took me to visit one of their friend’s weekend homes so I could see what one was like. I need to research this a bit on the internet to understand what these week-end country homes are all about.

I am quite fortunate, Jirca and Eugenie have been wonderful to me. Tomorrow night I will dinner at their house and then off to Krakow.