Hostels are bougie homeless shelters, homeless shelters that you pay for. Morgan convinced me that it would be a good idea to stay in a hostel on a 2 day trip to Prague. I made it to 30 without staying in a large room filled with bunk beds where I would be spending nights listening to other people snore. I have never been to county jail and I have never stayed in a European hostel. The problem was that we were booking very late and more importantly we are very poor. I am very poor, so I have no room to demand a hotel room that I can’t afford so I gave in to staying on thetop bunk above a stranger.

After a very pleasant bus ride that was proceeded by a very unpleasant, hysterical run because of a metro mix up, we arrived in the castle-filled city of Prague. When we got to our hostel we were surprised to find that there was a bar serving SoCo and Lemonade cocktails ( what I would call a gut punch cocktail), a rather gruff looking Czech bouncer, and a full on dance club in the lobby. Black Eyed Peas was blasting and I already had a stress headache developing behind my eyes. Morgan assured me that she has stayed in many hostels and only had a great time sharing rooms with Brazilian models and eating free breakfasts.

We are given our room and bed assignments and we head up to see where we will be sleeping. The room is not bad for a studio apartment with 4 bunk beds placed closely together. I find my assigned bed and climb up to put my things away. To get out of the bed I practically have to jump down, I am not the most coordinated person, this seems like it may end in an injury.

In walks a tiny, soft spoken young girl that tells Morgan and I about her travels and how happy she is that there are girls in the room. Finally, girls. The boys that have been staying with her are out getting drunk. We mentioned that were were going for a traditional Czech meal and she said that she would be eating in the room where she produced a back of bread and various fruits she would be eating in the cubby hole that made for herself.

After eating a lot of bread, meat and thick sauce and drinking a sampler of beer we headed back to the room. Around 2 am I was burning up and trying to force myself to sleep when four 18 year old boys trundled in. They are drunk and opening bits of candy and struggling with getting there pants off. Someone smokes a cigarette in the bathroom and I try my best to pretend that it is not happening. After they settle downand start to pass into sleep that is when the farting starts. The sounds of gas that is so loud it shakes the windows. These are farts of people that have let go, that give zero fucks. I finally start to fall asleep with the thick air wafting all around me when I am startled awake by one of the boys screaming in raspy Italian. It sounds like he is fighting off an intruder so I sit up to see what is going on when I hear another loud Italian exclamation come from the other side of the room. These boys must be having the same dream, they are so drunk they are lucid dreaming together. How sweet.
After sleeping two hours, and waking up in what smelled like a running shoe, I was ready to change rooms. It was a pretty easy swap into a new room but I was scared it could be worse. What if we ended up in a room where the walls were covered in blood and poop? What if the night terrors were worse in our next room? Or worse, what if we ended up with people who wanted to talk…about our lives? I would have to smile and nod while I hear about the stress that gives a high strung college student bells palsy or how Sydney is far superior to Melbourne.        

Sadly, those are the two people that we found. We were met with screams of “YOU BETTER HAVE SOME EAR PLUGS!” because someone in the room was a snorer of such a degree that he sounds like a vacuum that has sucked up a small dog. Sleeping two hours the night before and spending all day being a tourist put me right to sleep. Morgan was subjected to bells palsy doing yoga poses trying to get comfortable enough to watch and episode of Law and Order.

At 5 am the screaming started. I am woken up by two American dudes yelling “WELCOME TO THE PRAGUE ZOO”. Complaining at the top of their voices about the savagery of the snoring coming from a chubby white dude with dreads. Funny enough the snorer had snuck in a few hours earlier with his girlfriend and began to snore the most melodious, constant, soothing snoring I have every experienced. My mother sounds like she is choking when she snores, my grandpa sounded like someone who couldn’t breath without coughing, I know snoring and his snoring was beautiful. Fucking gorgeous.

We woke the next morning at 7 am to take a bus back to Berlin. We checked out with the most stoned Spaniard I have every seen and swore never to stay at a hostel again.