Never make hasty judgments and other lessons learned in a hostel

Hostels, or backpackers as they're called here, are a world of their own. This is especially true in the off season, when the usual parade of gap year students and young adventurers are replaced by a more varied array of residents. Some lessons I've learned so far:

1. Never make hasty judgments on a person's culinary abilities.

On day three of my stay in Albert Park Backpackers (that's how long it took me to pull myself together and go to the grocery store for supplies), I sauntered into the kitchen ready to wow everyone with my grand plans for making stir fry. I quickly realized that no one would be wowed. Except for maybe me. First of all, I had to wait my turn. Then I had to readjust some assumptions I didn't even realize I had made. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had assumed that the English guys with all the piercings and slightly offensive tee shirts wouldn't be good cooks. Same with the Japanese girls in the room next to me who always look meticulously done up, and the funny German couple who always argue over breakfast. Not so. Simmering around the kitchen were homemade pasta sauces, soups, chicken parm, fish fillets, and you get the idea.
It turns out that pretty much everyone in Albert Park Backpackers Hostel is gourmet chef or at least was one in a previous lifetime. I guess it makes sense for people trying to live on a budget: there's only so long a person can go on noodles and frozen dinners before they get pretty creative in the kitchen. But still, I was surprised. It's been fun cooking with everyone, and I finally learned how to make good fried rice thanks to my Japanese roommates. Unfortunately for my newfound fried rice skills, I will probably never want to eat rice again after this trip. Living and eating inexpensively (and living with other people who are doing the same) means that everyone eats rice all time. It's about NZ$1.50 for a kilogram of rice. And while that innocent bag doesn't look like a lot, we all know how rice expands, and that little bag can probably feed two people for about a week. After a 6 days of having rice with almost every meal, I'm beginning to dream of the day when I reach the bottom of my kilo of rice.

2. A common language is not always necessary for conversation.

One of my roommates had a job interview yesterday. It didn't go well. I know this because when I walked into our room at around 9:00 last night, she was sitting on the lone chair in the room crying. So I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong while she tried to calm down a little. Hitomi's English isn't great yet since this is her first time working in an English-speaking country, but usually we manage the half-English half-gesturing hostel speak that gets most of us through the day. But since she was upset it was harder than usual to try and speak another language, so instead she told me what happened in Japanese and I comforted her in English. Neither of us had a clue what the other was saying, but I think we understood each other anyway.

3. I cannot sleep through everything.

I thought I could. I really did. I've slept through fire alarms and bright sunlight on my face and years of roommates dropping things and talking on the phone. But our room is right below the roof, which is where people hang out at night. And something about cask wine and a rooftop just gets to Matt's head, and he feels the need to yell long streams of insults at his ex-girlfriend in Christchurch. This usually happens about thirty minutes after I've fallen asleep, and I wake up every time. I'm tempted to rent a car, go find whatever girl was crazy enough to date Matt, and bring her to Auckland so he won't have to yell quite so loud.

4. How to make friends you will never see again.

It's not hard to make friends in hostel, especially if you stay for more than a day or two, so I've gotten to know all of the "long-term" residents of Albert Park Backpackers. These transient friendships were solidified on Wednesday, when we all planned to go out for karaoke only to find that the usual bar was showing a rugby match instead, so we went to another bar that happened to have a dance floor. Once you've seen someone dance under the influence of a few NZ$5 beer jugs, there really isn't anything left to hide. I imagine karaoke would have had the same effect.

5. What "Chin chin" means in Japanese.

Just before this outing, one of my roommates cooked dinner for everyone (spaghetti with meat sauce and it was fantastic). As we all sat down to eat, we all raised our glasses and said "cheers" in our respective languages. But before we could touch glasses the four usually reserved Japanese girls at the table collapsed into fits of giggles. It turns out that Jorge's toast, "Chin chin," roughly translates as "a small boy's private parts" in Japanese. Who knew?