Day 1: The Trip, the Day, the First Hostile Hostel

8 am over here. For those that know my sleeping patterns, this may prompt fear and panic. Nothing’s wrong, don’t worry – I’m apparently in the most ambitious youth hostel of all time and everyone here is waking up. More on that in a bit.

3 points to hit on in this blog: 1) The plane 2) First day  3) Comical first night in a hostel

1) The Plane
So aside from when my dad, sister and I took a seemingly spontaneous trip to the ’06 World Cup in Germany (amazing), this was the longest plane ride of my life. Thought I would just watch Gladiator (how else can you adequately prepare yourself for Europe/Rome?) and konk out, wake up with no jet lag and crush Madrid. Well, the girl I have aptly dubbed “Press-Stare-Blare Girl" had something to say about that. She wanted nothing to do with sleep. Just stared at the touch screen in front of her, pressed awful music selections, and let it rip into her ears. Thought the headphones blaring anything from Bieber to Chesney were actually in my own ears at one point. Not a problem, I’d just ignore that and sleep anyways. Had almost hit the zone when “PSBG’s” significant other decided to attempt the near-impossible feat of climbing over me (literally, climbing) for the bathroom without warning, placing his foot between my legs, hand by my ear, and just going for gold. Great stuff.

Normally not one to complain about plane rides except when a) the bags of peanuts are too small b) the cart ladies are slew of foot and c) it’s not a JetBlue flight. But for God’s sake United needs to get wider aisles. The average American, who is an average of 43 pounds overweight, simply doesn’t fit. Had at least 6 muffin-top grazings against my shoulder and 3 cart-to-foot/knee experiences. Anyways, Goose and I combined for 1 3/4ths hours of sleep, but in the excitement of arrival, we were ready to show jet lag who was boss.

2) The First Day 
 I could get used to life in Europe pretty fast. Yesterday’s activities:

• Goose's amigas Kelsey and Ashley were gracious hosts/tour guides/social life savers. King's palace is down the street from the hostel. Problem is the king's palace burned down. What's left is a totally outrageously large "backyard"/public park.

•  Dabbled about in the king's pond in paddle boats

•  Goose carried his man purse around
  

• Crushed a plate of ox meet we cooked ourselves (still don't understand concept of paying to go do a chore, but it was great.)
  

3) First night in a hostel

Small world story: first person I met living in our 12-man hostel room was Molly, a Northeastern student from Boston who refuses to talk to me/anyone and is traveling alone. Classic Northeastern. Got back at 2 to attempt a good night sleep, woken up by some blabbering Spanish men and women at about 5. Not one but two girls climbed into the bed over my head and what ensued may be described as “potentially lesbonic activities.” Wasn’t concerned, until I had to find out that Spanish folk are absolutely shameless about sleeping. Not just the fact that in their culture, afternoon siestas are essentially mandatory, but the manner in which they sleep is just aggressive. What followed was a beautifully constructed symphony of snores – hairy Spanish guy on the baritone bass and lesbians one and two covering the alto tenor. Amazing, really. A couple hours later, I awoke to a buck naked Spanish youth’s ass about four feet from my face. I just laughed. I cannot WAIT to hear Kinzer, Tom, Will and Ben’s hostel experiences in two weeks. It’s now hit me – this is going to be a wild month.


- Andrew/Odysseus