Living in a Hostel

While I’d love to stay in the $200 per night room in San Diego, I also love saving money.  A few years ago I stayed at a hostel in town.  I had so much fun that I did it again this year.

If you’ve never stayed in a hostel, you should try it sometime.  Yes, I was the oldest resident there but they accepted me.  I slept in a room with 4 beds (female, not a co-ed room).  Frankly, after growing up in a family with 8 kids, sleeping in a bunk room was not an issue.  When I had a chance to see my roommates, they were very friendly.  Two were in their early 20’s from Korea (though traveling separately and were in the room at different days). 

One rule of hostels is to keep lights off and be as quiet as possible in the bedroom while getting ready for bed or getting up in the morning.  That meant I needed to prepare my weeks’ worth of clothes when I got there since I left early and got in late several days.  Another rule for hostels is to bring ear plugs.  Between the noises of roommates getting up, snoring at times, and the bar noises right outside the window; wearing ear plugs all night made sense.

This hostel is full of art along the halls and room.  It has free internet along with a room of computers that you can use.  Breakfast is free everyday along with several suppers.  One night there was even free beer.  Given how much time I was at the conference, I didn’t get to do much of this but it’s nice that they do it.

 

In case you are wondering, there were two showers and two bathrooms on the floor.  The rooms were for only one person at a time, so they were co-ed but not really.  This hostel had a “hair dryer” room.  It had a wall of sinks to brush your teeth and get ready.  Again, it was co-ed.  Another rule is to clean up after yourself.  You even have to wash and dry your bowl and spoon after eating cereal.

Staying in a hostel isn’t for the meek, but I enjoy talking to young adults from around the world. I did a little traveling when I was young, but I’m always amazed at their boldness in traveling alone to new places.  Very cool!

San Diego

This week I attended a conference in San Diego.  Mostly I was at the conference, but I got to see some of the town as I walked to the conference or in the evening if I went out to dinner.

One thing about San Diego is how fit everyone was.  There were lots of people running at all times of the day.  The hardcore fitness people ran to the conventional center and ran up and down the steps.  I saw many of them run the steps and then do a series of sit-ups or crunches at the base.  Then they would hop up the stairs three steps at a time.  Hard-core!

The Gaslamp District is full of bars and restaurants.  And lots of people in the evening.  I enjoyed several good meals in the area.

The Petco Park stadium was close to where I was staying.  Opening night for the baseball season is a month away, but I got this close to the stadium.

 

While there is a lot more things to see in the area (USS Midway, San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, the beaches), they will have to wait until later trips.

On the way home to Pensacola, Dirk Benedict sat across the aisle from me.  My seatmate recognized him since he used to race home from school to see episodes of A-team where Dirk played the character “Face Man Peck”.  Dirk also played “Starbuck” in Battlestar Galactica.  We asked him if he was Dirk, but he didn’t want to talk.  So we left him alone.  Apparently he was coming into Pensacola for Pensacon. 

I also saw Deep Roy on the plane.  He played the Oompah-Loompah in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Keenser (the creature/fellow Starfleet officer that Scotty yells at “Get off there”) in the new Star Trek movies, and several other movies.  I think there were several other people coming as guests for the Con, but I didn’t realize they would be on the plane or I would have looked more closely.

 

It was so cold that….

 

Early this week I got on the plane from Pensacola Florida to go to Columbus Ohio.  Weather was 'interesting' in both places.

 

In Pensacola, ice shut down school for 3 days.  There was ice everywhere.  The temperature got down to 22.  That is, positive 22 Fahrenheit.   

In Ohio, the temperature went down to -22 F.  This was the view flying into Columbus.  My seat mate had just spent 9 days in Palm Beach.  He was unhappy/whining/disgusted about returning home to this scene and took this picture.

 

It was so cold that…

-       Kids were throwing boiling water into the air to watch it change to snow.

-       After 10 minutes with the rear window heater on, nothing was thawed or even mushy.  There wasn’t enough heat in the window heaters to overcome that cold for even a small melted line until 20 minutes or so.  Same thing for the front window.  Car heat never melted the front window, it had to be scraped.

-       The car REALLY struggled to start.

-       I like to put a wet towel across the window heater in my hotel room to get moisture in the air when it’s so cold and dry.  This time the towel froze!

-       When the temperature reached +10 F a couple days later, we all celebrated seeing double digit positive numbers.