Pick Your Poison

As my exciting travel days approach, I have been spending a lot of time getting my ducks in a row, and organizing such details as, where I plan to sleep at night. The other night I spent a glorious length of time with Science Girl on hostel details. We are both going to be in Istanbul on the same day, and it will be good having one of my besties by my side as I find creative ways to fend off money hungry locals, and undoubtedly force me to try local delicacies. I have however made a rule that I refuse to eat meat off of a revolving stick. I have not stayed in a hostel before, and am learning quickly that I may not enjoy, though am surprisingly excited to experience it. Science Girl and I spent hours skimming through hostel options, and tossing those which we deemed to be "uninhabitable". Thankfully, neither of us are attracted to such "pro's" as defined by the internet as being "great partying spots" or "social hubs for travelers." When I opened the page of one potential candidate, I was immediately disgusted when the main picture selected for the hostel was a large group of 20-something travelers all hanging out together in the lobby, having a fantastic chum session. This is my absolute nightmare. Under no circumstances do I think this was an appropriate selling point for this property, and would much prefer the management to showcase the cleanliness of the rooms, the one place in the hostel I plan to "hang out in", and by "hang out" I mean to sleep exclusively. I have no intention of "chillaxing" on beanbag chairs with fellow globetrotters on rainy afternoons, or reading novels from the "library" which one hostel boasted as a selling point. Your not fooling anyone, just because you have a single bookshelf partially filled with travel agency magazines, that doesn't make you the Four Seasons. Science Girl and I settled upon a candidate which thankfully didn't use "meet lifelong friends" as a sales pitch. Its not that I don't want to meet new people, I just don't want to have to talk to them.



My Prediction: I don't sleep a wink my first night alone in this hostel, as I am too busy contemplating ways in which I could potentially get suckered into something unpleasant, like a hostel photoshoot in the lobby, or a hammock chat with strangers about how traveling changed their life.

PS. Good luck to Science Girl who is having grad school interviews this week! Allstar!

B