It’s the smell. That’s the thing about travelling that you forget. That and the waiting. You spend the time between trips at home, dreaming, wishing that you could just go away. You sigh and fawn over other people’s holiday photos on facebook, you google far away places on the chance you’ll see something new and you subscribe to travel agent newsletters in the hope that one day you’ll be sitting at your desk, open the email from flight centre only to find there’s a deal that’s too good to be true and for less than a fortnight’s pay you’ll find yourself in a country far far from home. That’s what it’s like between trips. Let me remind you what it’s like on trip.
It has come to my attention that I am not twenty anymore and while the hot girls let me play and imagine for a little while there are still a number of things that I’ve become less comfortable with as my digits have gotten higher. Once upon a time, sleeping in hostels was an adventure. The thrill of meeting new people, of seeing that hot Ukranian take his clothes off while you pretend your sleeping, the fear of bedbugs and the even better drinking story when you find them and the chance of stumbling across a pair of nice Irish girls who want to get shit faced as much as you do. That’s what I remember about hostelling. And my twenty-two year old self loved those things. My thirty-two year old self wants to slap the younger one and remind her of what diseases she could catch from sleeping in those sheets that may not have been washed since 2002.
Crawling into bed at four am, drunk and in various stages of undress hasn’t happened for me in a quite a while. Actually that’s a lie. It happened in Memphis not that long ago BUT it hasn’t happened in a hostel for a long time. As an older BFK wearer there are things about hostels that either didn’t bother me then or I have simply chosen to forget. The beds squeak. They squeak a lot. I live in eternal fear that when I check in to the next hostel I am going to be relegated to the top bunk of an IKEA special that’s been put together with an Allen key. Whether I could manage the ascension at four am and half dressed in the old days, I honestly don’t remember but the thought fills me with dread every time I pack my bag. Will that bloody ladder hold me? Will I be able to lift my dodgy knee vertically from the ground? Will that bed squeak and worse, could it topple if I have to push my entire arse out to get the leverage to get up? And worst of all – will that piece of ply hold out or will I fall through and crush that sleeping mini Slovakian that lies beneath me? All genuine questions that before this trip I can never remember asking myself. (Well, partly – I’ve always wondered about the last one…)
The stairs are the next one. When you pay $25 for a bed for the night you can bet that the place can’t afford a lift. And if it can, it’s not one you’d like to put yourself in. Apparently I need more shit this trip. It doesn’t matter how much I post, throw out or give away, I manage to fill my suitcase at every stop. This trip from Toronto to Montreal, I posted home about 10kg of stuff, threw out two tops and a pair of shoes and still managed to crawl my arse out of the hostel with not one, not two but four bags. Staying on the fourth floor of the hostel with no elevator and trying to move four bags at once must have at least been entertaining for the Slovakians. Imagine my surprise to find the stairway entrances and exits filled with patiently waiting foreigners as I somehow managed to half drag/carry my suitcase down the stairs while wearing a backpack on my front and my back with my lesbian camera bag draped across the middle all the while taking up the stairway from wall to bannister. I may as well have a draped a Slovakian over each shoulder and embraced my assumed middle eastern weight lifting heritage. Today in the railway station, while the commuters scowled and stepped over my suitcase up the stairwell, a Very Big Frilly Knicker Wearer waitied at the top of the staircase with her walking stick and instead gave me a look of knowing and pity. On the inside I was screaming ‘thankyou fat lady for understanding’ while in the back of my head secretly despising myself that the only woman who understood my pain drove a motorised scooter at the age of forty.
But it’s not really the beds or the stairs at the end of the day that make this travelling thing tough. It’s the smells and the waiting. And not necessarily in that order. The smells are horrific. Sharing bathrooms, public toilets, restaurants, everything with complete strangers is always interesting but more times than not its assaulting to my nostrils. Unisex bathrooms – they are all over North America. In coffee shops, on trains, planes – you name it the little boy and little girl symbols are on one and the same door. Before this trip, I have never been one to balk at unisex toilets. On quite a number of occasions I have been scolded, supported and praised for jumping queues for female toilets by heading to the gents. But here’s the thing. In the boys toilet they have special recepticals for boys that make weeing easier for them. In a unisex toilet – they are faced with only one bowl. I know that I don’t have one, and I know that I could never ever possibly assume to know how it works in that capacity, but if you’ve had one for a number of years surely you know your own limits. The trains are the worst. If anyone’s been past the B Block toilets at The Gap State High School you will understand the scent that so assails me. I struggle with it there but here it intensifies. At least there I can hold my breath and walk on by. On these trains I have no choice but to enter and force the thought of the source of that smell as far away as I can. The smells never used to bother me. In fact I used to laugh at a previous travel companion who had to stuff tissues up her nose to stop herself from gagging. But these smells, these are the ones I have forgotten about and now make me dream of my toilet at home in Warana Street. There truly is no place of happiness like your own loo or one that smells purely of bleach.
The last bit you forget about is the waiting. I post on facebook all of the good hours of my day. The happy ones. The ones where I see something amazing, where I am laughing and where things are beautiful. What you forget when you are at home dreaming of exotic lands are the hours you sit, stand and wait. You wait at airports, train stations, in line at hostels, for the shower, for the toilet, for the toaster in the kitchen. You wait and wait and wait for those brief moments when you see something unforgettable. It is in these moments of waiting that I get the saddest. It is the waiting moments when you crave your travel buddy. A buddy that you can dig in the ribs when you notice the man wearing three pairs of glasses and only his pyjama bottoms, someone to sigh at or whinge when your feet hurt from all the standing or just someone who knows you well enough not to have to speak to them. It is these moments of waiting I have forgotten about. These moments where I wish I was at home, that Ash was about to come bounding in the door whining about the old ladies who wouldn’t leave their table, that Binnie will whinge about her lack of gluten free options, that Sheridan will ring and tell me she’s cooked dinner, that Nat will call to check that I’m still alive and haven’t been swallowed by marking, that Nicole will send me a text and ask when am I coming out next? In these moments of waiting is where I miss you all the most. And then they pass. I walk around the corner and Niagara Falls is just there, like it has been for the last thousand years and my ten minutes of waxing sadness is put back into perspective. Yes I miss you, and yes I am looking forward to coming home, but I am learning the hard way that I have to keep looking for the next bit. The next bit that might just be more fun than the bit before. And until those moments come round each corner – I have facebook. To have you wait with me until the sadness passes. Miss you all!!
life in big frilly knickers 