On Roommates

Hello, little neglected blog. It’s a good thing that Betsy is so much better at churning out posts, otherwise you’d be relegated to a dusty corner of the internet saved for old geocities pages left from the mid-nineties. We have just left Bucharest, and are on our way to Varna, Bulgaria. Varna is a costal city, so I’m quite looking forward to the wind and the ocean and not feeling like an egg, slowly cooking in a concrete jungle.

I’m sitting in a McDonalds at the Bucharest North Train Station (hey, it has free wifi and I ate those stupid salmon pancakes, I can take a McD’s break if I want to), and I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to talk about our roommates thus far.

Remember that feeling, the summer before freshman year? When you were refreshing your brand-new college email account and waiting for your roommate assignment so you could stalk them on facebook, open up a dialogue, and agree who should buy the refrigerator before getting onto the perfectly normal business of hating one another? And then that first day on campus, when you put the facebook photos to the person and fot through that first night?

OMG HEY We're gonna be BFFs until you leave your toe nail clippings in the carpet and then I'll kill you in your sleep! LOL!

Sometimes I think that rooming in hostels is like that. But then I remember that we have no idea who our roommates will be (no facebook, no contact, to emails), and the first night isn’t a magical “we can make this work!” mentality, instead it’s been a bit more of a “they can deal. They’re only here for a couple of days” mentality. Which is to say we’ve had some interesting experiences.

Some of the highlights?

– Our first night in Brasov, Romania a middle-aged man checked in quite late to the hostel, after most of us had gone to bed. He loudly came in, plunked his bags down, stripped his clothes off, and made his way around the room for ten minutes, somehow hitting every piece of furniture he could and exclaiming each time he did as if it were a brand new surprise. But eventually he settled into bed. Good, I foolishly thought, now we can get to bed. But oh, how naïve I was. For little did I know this man would snore through the entire night. But snore is too light of a word. A better way to say it is perhaps “drown in his own mucus” all night. It was quite simply the loudest, most disgusting, vile, gut-wrenching noise I have ever heard out of the mouth of a human being. At one point I got out of bed (I bunk on top, so this is usually a graceless event involving me tumbling to the floor and landing on my butt) to use the bathroom and on the way back in Betsy calmly asked me to murder our roommate. Fortunately I was too tired and lazy to actually do so, but we did entertain the thought.

– In Bratislava, Slovakia, we were already pretty cheesed off. Our train through the previous night had arrived at the station at 6 in the morning and, despite telling the hostel our arrival time when we reserved the beds, they told us we couldn’t check in until 3pm. We had been hoping to get the beds and crash until around 10, but instead we had to put our bags in the luggage room and awkwardly sleep like hobos on the common room furniture. When we finally got our beds, we were quickly followed by two guys. We did the usual small talk with them, “how are you where are you going how are you getting there how old are you yes we’re American isn’t that weird haha that’s so funny well bye now,” and we discovered that they were heading to a secret conference in the middle of the Slovakian woods hosted by a murder mystery writer. I’m not kidding. I can’t make this stuff up, unless I ripped it directly from an Agatha Chritie or an old episode of Scooby Doo. These guys were quite tolerable, if a little socially retarded. We encountered them in the pub and had endless small talk until we retreated to the room upstairs. And that’s when we met the single most annoying human being I have ever encountered in my twenty two years of living. Her name was something chipper and infuriating, like Piper. She was from Nottingham (“YOU KNOW LIKE ROBIN HOOD” She said about twenty times), and was incapable of speaking at a normal volume or with any kind of punctuation whatsoever.

What I picture when I think of England. Well, this and a new-found frothing rage.

She had already started drinking by the time she arrived, and she kept pointing out how BEER WAS SO BLOODY CHEAP HERE OH LAWD YOU CAN GET A PINT FOR ALMOST NOTHING DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY POUNDS IT COST BACK HOME CHAPS YES YES JOLLY OH AND GOD SAVE THE QUEEN? It was like watching a poorly performing stand-up comic do a horrible imitation of someone from England.

She fortunately left with the Irishmen who did nothing but egg her on. Betsy and I were grateful until, sadly, they had to return. Like homing pigeons carrying a deadly virus of crankiness they returned, loud and rambunctious. They woke us up, kept us up, and hand no manners whatsoever. Even AFTER they went to sleep we would get no rest, as Little Miss Nottingham kept waking up in the wee hours of the morning to spew out a couple of paragraphs in loud, poorly accented German before falling back asleep.

– If we’re going for “Most Awkward Encounter,” it would have to go to Mr. McPubby Pants of Krakow, Poland. First you must understand that Krakow is a student town. There is a nearby university, and many abroad European students will make it a fun weekend destination. It’s also a popular place for roaming Stag Parties (the UK equivalent of a Bachelor party). Which is to say, in fewer words, that Krakow is a lovely place to go drink some alcohol. Our Hostel there, Greg & Tom’s (which we recommend to anyone looking for a Hostel in Krakow—seriously the staff, the accommodations, the social atmosphere were all fantastic. It’s been our favorite Hostel thus far) provided nightly activities for the visiting tourists. Some nights there were vodka tastings accompanied with dinner, other nights the Hostel Guides took us out to some pubs and clubs, so that no one would pay more than needed or get taken advantage of by locals. The first night we were there, we decided to partake in one of the pub crawls. We figured we’d get to see the city at night, plus if we found anywhere we really loved we’d be able to hit it another night. And, for the most part, we were right. There was only one slightly hinky moment when a guy (who we presumed to be a local) bought us a drink. The Hostel Guide had told us this was pretty common, and a drink didn’t mean much here. A drink meant I’d like to have a conversation with you, but two drinks meant something more. So we agreed (dear Mom and Dad: we were also with some other girls from Brazil, so it’s all good) had a conversation, drank a beer, and chilled. It was about then that the group started to move onto the next pub, but our guy was adamant. He wanted to stay! He wanted to buy the girls more drinks!

I’ll take this moment to address a common complaint I hear from guys: “Why do girls always have to go in a group?” Well, the answer is: because it gives us super powers. Want to get out of a dance? Out of a drink? Want to head to the next bar? Socially awkward and often off-putting on your own, but in a group? No one can deny the wishes of the femme faction.

Hahaha! Just try to deny us, jerks!

We told him we’d rather not, and thanks for the drink. He pouted, made some kind of “women” hand gesture, and sulked at his table. We left. We pretty much forgot about him and had a lovely evening.

Until the next morning. We’d gotten back late, so we hadn’t turned on the lights before heading to bed. I woke up in the late morning, to find Betsy staring at me wide-eyed from the other bed.

“It’s him.” She whispered.
“Who?”
“The guy.”
“What?”
“The guy from the pub who bought us a drink.”
“hernngh?” (I had just woken up, to be fair)

Well, it turns out little Pouty McPubby pants wasn’t, in fact, a local from Krakow. He was from Warsaw, in Krakow for some training. Why he was at a Hostel was anyone’s guess, but there he was, in the bed across from ours. Yup. We woke up, showered, and got ourselves ready in record time, hoping to avoid the delicious awkwardness awaiting any kind of conversation with him.

Just as we were about to leave, he woke up and waved at us. We said hi. We said we were leaving. We made awkward small talk. We started to head out the door.

Betsy, in fact, said “See you later!”

He responded, “I would like that.”

We pretty much sprinted out of the Hostel and were relieved when he had checked out by the time we came back.

Those have been the winners, in any case. There have been more snorers, more loud-talkers, the Chinese girl who hung her matching bra and thong out to dry every night like a religious ceremony. The 31-year-old British architect who had just quit his job and was traveling down to work with Orangutans for a couple of years. The Californian who had just finished teaching in Korea for 2 years and was making his way home, the long way.

Betsy has pointed out that I should provide a disclaimer before signing off. During our travels we HAVE met some wonderful and interesting people. We have gone out to dinners, gotten recommendations, exchanged Russian Mafia stories, and made some friends. But they’re no fun to tell you about, are they?

Lots of love,
Lo