I have been travelling for
a few years now in Youth Hostels. Since this is a travel blog on a
travel website, I'm assuming most people who read this (if anyone
does!), have been to one at some point. I didn't realise it the first
time I came to Italy because it was as part of a school group, or
when I went to Asia because I was with four friends, but now that I'm
travelling alone, I'm starting to see they do something to people.
In the past few years, I
have grown more and more accustomed to being on my own, to the point
where I am never sure how to start a conversation with a stranger
now. If I go to a pub or a coffee shop on my own (which, by the way,
is not as pathetic as it sounds!), I never meet anyone. However, the
minute I set foot in a hostel, I find myself surrounded by lovely,
sociable people with whom I spend whole days visiting and whole
evenings... well, let's just say that sleep is overrated!
I live in England now and,
the first day I arrived to London, I met this American student who
was in London for a few weeks and, within a couple of hours of my
arrival in the hostel, we had a group of six or seven people, from 5
countries and three continents and we spent a week together,
discovering the capital.
In Barcelona, only two
weeks ago, I arrived in the hostel and hadn't had time to leave my
bags in my room that already I had made a few friends. I was in that
city for three days and, every evening, after a full day of
touristing (I know, it's not a word, but if it was up to me, it would
be!), we would meet at the hostel, cook and eat together and then
spend most of the night playing cards, basketball (getting police
warnings because we were playing basketball...) and talking.
In Marseille, I met a
couple of Australian students, studying in Holland and visiting the
south of France and, after visiting Marseille together, we then
travelled to Nice which we visited together as well.
How can it be so easy
talking people, meeting people in hostels when it seems so hard in
real life? Do they change everyone or just make me more sociable?
