Why Stay in Hotels When There Are Hostels?
Hostels are fun, hostels are cheap, and are so much more interesting than a hotel! A low tariff per night has a lot of attraction on a limited budget. Getting back in to traveling mode was not going to be easy for a single old person. Old is just a state of mind, and its perception, reality.
Having reached Christchurch in the South Island ” the Garden City ” and delivered safely by a bus driver, obviously concerned about a grey-haired someone looking just a bit lost, asked where I was staying? Giving him my destination he assured me, it was just an easy two-block walk. However, the easy two-block walk turned into a half hour struggle as total disorientation set in. Now having acquired a street map, things improved immediately and my hostel appeared. The handy takeaway and dairy likely to be very useful.
Check in completed easily, and directions given to go through the door and up the stairs. What no lift? Okay, so it is up the stairs, no problem, my suitcase and I climbed with difficulty up the stairs, but turning the corner there is another equally large number of steps to climb, by now it is a problem. Help is suddenly at hand from another backpacker, and I finally reached the top.
Down to the room allocated to me, it is a four-bed room, and the top bunk is mine. Leaving the trusty suitcase under the bunk, I sailed out to explore my home for the next three days. Oh joy, there are toilets and showers are directly opposite the room. Further down the hall a huge clean kitchen with storage, fridges and microwaves and all the essential cooking utensils for communal use. There were cubicles for bags containing people’s ingredients for their meals and stickers for attaching to food items in the fridges. A comfortable and pleasant lounge complete with a large television, a bookshelf with a swap books facility adjoined the kitchen-dining room.
Now it is time to go out and check what the Christchurch has to offer the traveler. The beautiful square with the Cathedral, street sellers with their arts and crafts. The beautifully restored trams and people enjoying life. Heading back to the hostel for the night I picked up takeaways for dinner. By now, the kitchen is full of young people all busy chopping up vegetables and generally preparing their evening meal. Some of it looked very interesting! The takeaway meal stood out like a sore thumb!
Those who were already eating their meals sat at the tables chatting, and laughing over the days adventures. From all corners of the world there were Canadians, Americans, Japanese,Austrians,Chinese, English just to name a few as well as Kiwis,of course! Fascinating to watch everything being cleared away by everyone using the kitchen Evening in the lounge was spent watching the movies on TV, those not interested in the movie wrote in obviously well traveled journals or diaries. Bedtime rolled round much later than I am accustomed to and climbing into the bunk something new! Getting used to other people coming in and out was not the hassle I expected Sleep was quick and profound! Tomorrow has much promise; I like Hostelling!
