Adventures of Mark and Dan – Hostels

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in The Adventures of Dan & Mark

Hostels are Ok. I’m getting closer to the point where I’d rather stay in a hotel room, but you miss so much culture when you stay in a hotel.

Let’s take for example the hostel we stayed at in Toronto. This was a house converted into a hostel. Rooms with 6 bunk beds for 12 people to sleep. Stinky for sure – but cheap.

I’ll never forget this one because one of the nights we slept there I made the mistake of not falling asleep first. Some Aussie dude (cause those Aussie dudes are everywhere) was sleeping in the top bunk caddy corner from mine. Well, he fell asleep before me and started snoring. I’m not talking about the kind that you see depicted in “Dennis The Menace” cartoons, I’m talking about the kind of snoring that shakes the trees. I actually had to get down from my bunk, find a shoe, get back up in my bunk and threw the shoe at him to wake him. (Don’t worry I pretended to be sleeping for so long, that I must have fallen asleep).

Then there was the hostel in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I won’t forget this place either. There was no snoring there, but after the lights went out I heard all kinds of things scurrying around me. When we turned on the lights, we found that my bunk and the one above me were infested with thousands of little bugs. Needless to say, I slept on the floor – on my backpack.

But my favorite hostel was in Salzburg, Austria. Unlike the other two it was very clean and there were no snoring problems. Nevertheless, like the other two I got very little sleep. In fact I spent the entire night on a loveseat in the common area. I spent the entire night chatting with a young lady from New Zeland. We talked all night and it felt like we’d been friends forever. She was the first person I fell in love with. Whether it was puppy love or not, I don’t know. I was 21 years old. I just know that I never knew her name, have never seen her since but still smile at the memory.

Hostels are great places to experience life.

Ever stay in a hostel? I’d love to hear your story. Please share it!
  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





Adventures of Mark and Dan -Lost in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?, The Adventures of Dan & Mark

Ever get lost in Ljubljana, Slovenia? In the course of two days, we had two incidents where we were lost. Maybe getting lost is normal for you, but for us – it’s extremely rare. Both of us are the kind of guys that really have no issue with directions or maps. I wouldn’t even get nervous in the woods knowing which direction to head. That’s just us.

Ljubljana skyline, including Ljubljana Castle
Image via Wikipedia

Early one morning Tom, my brother, and I decided to go for a jog. We knew there was a “Central Park” type place so headed there and actually found a paved jogging trail. (That I didn’t expect). So we took off on a relatively leisurely run.

The paved trail was nice and wide with pretty street lights lining the roads. I don’t know when it dawned on us, but after an hour we realized that we were no longer in the park and didn’t seem to be heading back to the city yet. We found a jogger who spoke English and asked how to get back to town and was told to keep following the trail.  He just failed to tell us that it a 13 mile trail.

After following some back roads and stopping many more joggers, we ended up finding our way back in about an hour. But let me say, that was a long hour.

Then later that day, not the next day. That day. Mark and I decided we’d go get reservations for our ship ride. Tom and Szabi decided they’d hang out a bit and then would meet us at the train station where we’d have a better idea of which train to catch.

It must have taken us longer at the ship reservation place than all of us thought it would because when we got to the train station, Tom and Szabi were not there. They had waited so long, they’d come looking for us.  For the course of another “nervous” hour, Mark and I went searching for Tom and Szabi who were searching for us.

And then it started to rain.

In the end we all kept our wits about us and made our way back to the hostel – probably thinking when in doubt meet at the common meeting place.  For my little brother’s first trip to Europe, I was nervous. Very nervous.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments








If You Liked Your Visit, Share This Blog With Others

Switch to our mobile site