I Feel The Earth Move

I'm back on the interwebs and ready to rock this blog.

I've left Amsterdam, moved through Poland and have now reached the Czech Republic. I've decided to go all non-linear on this blog or just show things in the order I find them most interesting or pertinent (I take the same approach when showing Showgirls to the uninitiated) so I won't cover Poland just yet and how my calf muscles will never be the same. It'll come - don't worry.

Instead today the most important thing on my mind is youth hostels or how I have grown to hate them.

Maybe it's the time, maybe it's my age as I hurtle toward my fourth decade (wow - that makes me sound a hell of a lot older than I really am) or maybe I'm just a plain old crank but after one night in a hostel in Prague, I'm ready to torch the place.

I didn't always feel this way. In 2000 and 2001 when I travelled, I had nought but good experiences in youth hostels. But things were different then. The World Trade Centre towers loomed proudly over the New York skyline. New Orleans thought they were invincible and Ann Rice would always watch over them. You could travel on planes with a bottle of water and get through security wearing your belt and shoes. And most importantly, mobile phones hadn't quite infiltrated our lives.

Sure we all had them (heavens - it's not like I'm talking about the 90's!) but global roaming was still a confusing issue, people hadn't quite twigged to the fact that they could swap SIM cards from country to country and battery lives were unreliable and stunted. Hell we were still getting our head around that new concept of being able to send these things called text messages to somebody who wasn't even on the same phone network as us. What a strange futuristic time we seemed to be living in. If you'd added some jet flames and a moving Asian billboard we would have all thought we were living in Blade Runner.

So back in the halcyon days of travelling, pre September 2001, it was possible to go to sleep in a hostel dorm without expecting numerous SMS messages and wacky ring tones to ensure you never reached deep REM sleep. Maybe I'm looking at things through rose-coloured glasses but I couldn't help but long for this not too distant past last night as one of my roommates, I forget his name so we'll just call him Mr Cocksnaggle, took not 1 but 3 phone calls between the hours of 2 and 5am. Don't you mind the rest of us, Mr Cocksnaggle! We're just lying here because our blood sugar levels are low and we can't quite work out how to stand up. It's not like we want to use these beds for sleep or anything.

I have a little less contempt for people who put their phones on silent during the night but there's an important distinction between "silent" in 2001 and in 2009. In 2001, it meant exactly that. Your phone didn't make a sound. In 2009, "silent" actually means "vibrate". And these fuckers have got some buzz in them. So if you're sharing a bunk bed with somebody and their phone vibrates, there's every possibility the whole room will shake and it will sound as if a plague of locusts are descending upon you in the night. Unless, of course, you're staying in Cambodia where both of those things will really be happening.

But I also discovered that mobile phones aren't the only things that will make your bunk vibrate as I awoke at 4am to a couple going at it hammer and tongs as they say in the top bunk. Now I'm all for sexual experimentation and livening up your sex life by trying it in unexpected places, but really? The top of a bunk bed with 5 other people in the room trying to sleep? At 4am? Is that really the best time to try the reverse cowgirl position? You sure now? You don't want to rethink that? As I listened to them testing Ikea's fine workmanship, I hoped neither of them got vertigo. But then I realised I actually very much wanted both of them to get vertigo. And when our young Valentino's phone rang and he reached to grab it, knocking his lady love off the top bunk where she plummeted naked to the floor landing face down next to my bed, a nasty voice in my head that I'm not at all proud of hissed "who's eating carpet now, sweetie?".

And I must admit my own hypocrisy here as I caused the bunk bed I was in to vibrate too. Vibrating as I lay there shaking with silent laughter.

The whole incident became even more dignified when Valentino's friend knocked on the door to let him know they had to leave so he did the considerate thing and turned on the bright fluorescent lights so that he could find his pants, slowly dressed while talking loudly to his friend and left leaving Lady Godiva to fossick around for something to wear as we all pretended not to be watching her. It was the most undignified exit from a hostel room I've seen since Reyjkavik 2001 when a drunk British backpacker didn't realise she had walked into the male dormitory by mistake at 3am until she had stripped down to only her thong - and I'm not talking about flip flops, It seems you can feel 7 pairs of eyes staring at you particularly when it's 3am in an Icelandic summer as there's still daylight filling the room.

But Lady Godiva didn't seem too fussed by her soulmate's less-than-honourable treatment of her as I found her the next morning in the hostel common room with her head in another guy's lap. I guess she thought - Valentino's been gone for a whole 4 hours now. Why wait?

I've often wondered at what moment should you no longer stay at youth hostels. My answer just became clear. When the idea of spending a night with Mr Cocksnaggle, Lady Godiva and Valentino doesn't fill you with joy. In other words - last night.