Staying in a hostel. I guess some people have never stayed in a hostel before and are wondering what it's like. The hostel I"m staying at right now is an affiliate of Hostelling International-a worldwide hostelling chain. Which means it has standards and is generally very clean and quiet. I'm staying in an allgirls room (another benefit to HI!) which has 6 beds-bunk beds. My roommates change every day mostly. Tonight it looks like I have only 2, girls from Japan. Not sure if they speak English yet. Last night my roommate was German.

The bathroom is down the hall with showers and there's a common room upstairs with a large kitchen and tv room. Plus there's internet access here, and a travel centre if you want to book tours. This is a place where you could literally take your grandmother, last night while watching the news I spoke to a woman who must have been more than 70 years old. Eeks! But it only costs $20/night to stay here so why not. Cheaper than a hotel by far and there are other benefits. My favourite, the "free food" area. So far I've had free curry, free bread with butter and jam, free yogurt and tonight a bonus...FREE WINE!!! Yep, all courtesy of fellow travellers who have left stuff behind. I also leave stuff behind, I've left pasta sauce, pasta, cheese etc. Anything I dont' want to take while I'm travelling. It's very handy.

Another very important benefit is a book exchange. Usually it's very informal-take a book, leave a book. Today I lucked out and found two books to replace the ones I've finished reading. Cool! Now i have something to occupy my time on the train.

Staying at a hostel is pretty neat and totally different than staying in a hotel where you're sheltered and expected to pay full price for everything. So what if the bathroom's down the hall, I think I can manage!