Since arriving in New Zealand, I slept nowhere else than in hostels.
That way I learned much about this habitat, that I would like to share with you.
Things that are the same in every hostel:
- There are the so-called ‘longtermers’, people who live more than 1-2 months in a hostel already. They have seen everything yet and adapt perfectly/ in their own ways to the life there. You can spot them by their colorful meals that often hold many courses.
- Every hostel has backpackers who work for accommodation. Thus, it can happen that your roommate cleans the shower after you or reminds you to dry your dishes. From them you hear countless stories how defaced some rooms are and how somebody misuses the handwashing liquid as shower gel.
- It appears to be 90% Germans and French you seem to meet.
- The kitchen will teach you soon to forget the hygiene standards from home. If there’s no scraps on it, it’s clean. Sharp knives don’t exist.
- Every hostel has a TV room, couches all over the place and a big dinner table near the kitchen.
- Every hostel is plastered with guideline notes in every corner, which all must have their very own story…
- Your travel guides are sleeping in the beds around you at night.
Things that are different in every hostel:
- At some hostels, you just lie down and sleep like a baby, whilst in other ones you get an uncomfortable itch remembering the bed bugs that you have flicked off the sheets.
- Big room with shower curtain, bathtub with shower curtain and the window curtain doesn’t even cover the whole clear glass window, shower cubicle, giant shower with glass doors that don’t close; taking a shower always is a little adventure.
- Some hostels are more ‘talky’, at one place I didn’t have a single conversation in 1,5 days. (Wasn’t as bad as it sounds. 😀 )
- At some hostels they provide you with free coffee and tea, at others there’s cappuccino on top, some even give rice and pasta, and at some places there’s none of that.
- The source of all being: The internet. Here you get temporary unlimited data for 12$ a week, there it is 4$ for 24 hours and 10 GB, there it is 6 GB once but as long as you like, currently I got 800MB for free with an UNbelievably unstable connection… (Most cities have at least one free hotspot in town, though.)
There is not much to tell about my current stay. I returned to Wellington to open my bank account, which worked out very well. Soon I will go to Hastings, because there are many orchard jobs and that’s exactly what I am looking for…
Besides, that area is said the same about as the area around the Kaiserstuhl in Germany: They have the ‘best’ wheather. 😊
But more on that later.
