Due Mezzo: Three Bruins and a Husky.

Staying in hostels has been an interesting experience. I'm going to admit it, the thought about sharing a crummy room with five strangers freaked me out at the very beginning but I found that it hasn't been too bad. The hostels that I have stayed in have been decently kept at the very least, which makes sense. I'm sure there are government regulations so that people cannot just rent out beds all willy nilly. Most importantly though, the people that I would share a dormitory with are just like me, penniless travelers who just want a good night's sleep. I don't mean that you can whip out your wallet and count your fat stack of bills or leave your passport lying around, but you can certainly count on meeting people who have traveled the world and have useful information and experiences to share.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I came back from teaching some Bruins a lesson. No, I did not beat them up, that would have been terribly unfair and just plain mean. What had happened was that when I met them earlier in the evening at my hostel,  they introduced themselves to me as two students and an alumnus from UCLA and so I told them I was from Seattle and studied at UW. It turns out that one of them was actually from Federal Way, Washington, but chose to go to a California school instead. I immediately asked what led him to making such a horrible decision and then just like that, the endless exchange of taunts and witty banter began.

Some highlights:

** "Wait, do you know how to use a macbook?
** "Dude, don't even bother. UW doesn't teach their students how to have fun."
** "People at UCLA actually study?"
** "So... how far into the NCAA did the Huskies get?"

Anyway, the three of them were really good friends backpacking around Europe before the alumnus had to leave to start a job in the "real world." It was really adorable and I could tell they were nice guys so when they invited me to go out with them to Trastevere, I gladly accepted. While I was getting my bus ticket, they started talking to an Alabamian Russian with a sombrero who had been living in Rome for five months. With a sunburned face, he told us that had just come back from a life changing excursion to Barcelona. When we arrived in Trastevere, we asked him what was a good place to hang out in the neighborhood since we actually had no idea what we were doing. He led us to a bar and told us to have a good night because he was exhausted from his trip. Giving the sketchy and dark bar a glance, we decided that it was not a happening place and to go walk around instead. It's obvious that things are going downhill when four young adults have to resort to getting gelato in order to keep things alive.

That's when I took charge and told them, "Don't worry, this dawg knows where to go." I led them to Campo de'Fiori (literally translated: Field of Flowers) where we ended up having a couple of glasses of wine at an enoteca. We briefly touched on relationships and the places to which we have traveled, but mostly talked about religion, faith, and God until two in the morning. All in all, it was a wonderful night. With good wine and even better conversation, things can never go wrong.

When I finally got to lay down in my bed, I thought about people who choose the lifestyle of a constant traveler. The Alabamian Russian with a sombrero left Russia when he was sixteen years old, briefly went to college in Alabama, and I think he's been traveling ever since (he looked like he was in his mid to later twenties). Next month he will return to Russia for the first time ever since he left as a teenager. I wondered how they felt to always be on the move and not to let their heart be settled into a single place. That's when I realized that I have been traveling my entire life and how my thoughts are always fluttering around the world. As I fell asleep, I wondered where and if they would ever land.

hd