Hostel Life & Cultural Infusion

I have NEVER heard of a hostel until I had to look up cheap ways to travel in November before this trip. A hostel can definitely be a wonderful experience or the worst experience of your travels. Either way, hostel living gives you an indication of your patience with others and how important personal space is to you.

I ENJOYED living in a hostel… I really said it… living in a hostel was a wonderful experience. I stayed in one from Wednesday, 16/1/2013 until Saturday, 26/1/2013 and thought it was going to be complete &*%*$*%&*$*$*%*&…. Yeah every expletive in the book based on the price. However, there is something special about bringing people with a similar ideal together for a brief time period.

Off the top of my head, I recall meeting and hanging out with people from Ireland, England, Finland, France, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, California, Washington, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Belgium.

I never imagined meeting all of these different types of people during my stay, let alone in about a week’s time. One of my French roommates, for example, is married, has two daughters, and is here looking for work as well as to learn English. For most of my duration here so far, he has been like a father figure for me, even coming with me to a couple of my apartment visits, which I will discuss about later.

In fact, I had a wonderful hostel family that really came together within one day. Try to imagine this if you can.. a group of people comprising from New Zealand, Australia, Germany, France, Mexico, Italy and Canada as well as myself all working together for one another and hanging out around the city.

One of my fondest memories was when we went out one night as a group of about 13 people. That was a lot of fun and it was interesting speaking and helping others discuss with my ‘mother tongue’ (English).

Also, it really shows the immense interest that many people have in speaking English and the lengths they are willing to go to learn it. One Italian told me recently that, for you, learning other languages is something that you want to do.. English is a language that we MUST learn.

I try to take advantage of any opportunity that I can invest in and I really want to learn the basics of other languages. Therefore, I have started setting up deals with a friend that speaks German, another that speaks French, and another that speaks Italian to hopefully learn the basics of these languages over the duration that I am here in exchange for me speaking and helping them with English and, in one case, Spanish. There is a small chance of it working out but I do want to help them out by speaking in English as much as I can for them. Either way, I think by doing that, we both are invested in helping out each other and are more motivated to making it work out.

Another fond memory was one night when we had a family dinner. The Italian in our group cooked pasta and the French man cooked up steaks and we added our own touchings to the meal after it was done. In that moment, it really made me think… we were together for about one week but we really became a family that looked out for each other, cooked for one another, hung out with each other, and, most importantly, appreciated one another.

I miss the ones that have already left Dublin dearly but am excited for the future opportunities to meet them as well as the ones that I will still have with the ones that still remain here for the next 6 months-1 year.

One interesting topic that we brought up were stereotypes about each other’s cultures and what Europeans typically wanted to visit in the U.S. and what Americans typically wanted to visit in Europe.

For example, even though it’s a small sample size, Europeans typically want to visit New York, Chicago, California, Miami, and Orlando. When you think about it, those are the main cities that typically get broadcasted on an international scale about Americans.

From my perspective, I said places such as Barcelona and Madrid in Spain, Berlin and Munich in Germany, Paris in France, Budapest, Vienna, Dublin, London, Scotland, etc.

From there, we then broke down interesting places to go within some of these countries.

For example, Budapest is a very cheap and amazing place to visit for a great time. Also, in France, I was recommended to see a place called Carcersonne, which has a beautiful castle in the countryside.

Honestly, I probably could sit here all day naming interesting places in each of the European countries but I will leave that for other times in this blog.

Also, I learned about new ways to eat such as toast with tomato, cream cheese , and Swiss cheese for breakfast, and a meal based around gnocchi for dinner.