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  Life in a hostel environmentBy Andrea Lavigne The Lonely Planet describes Victoria’s Ocean Island Backpackers Inn as being “an experience akin to being kidnapped by 100 of your closest friends...” I’m not sure if this makes me feel lazy because I don’t have 100 close friends, or the few friends I have seem lazy because they don’t carry duct tape and balaclavas. In either case, lacking the kind of vida loca promised by the Holy Bible of travelling guides, I figured it was worth a Friday night. With backpack and a copy of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (couldn’t find my copy of Kerouac’s On the Road), I “travel” from the office on Broughton Street all the way down to Pandora and compete with a Japanese girl wearing a foam mesh trucker’s hat at the front counter. She’s cuter, definitely, but I have the power of English on my side. An Australian girl gives me a quick rundown of the joint, a key and some sheets. I have the cheapest room in the house, shared by three other people. While the room is clean and smells good, neither the top or bottom plastic-covered mattress look particularly inviting, so I just throw the sheets down blindly, convincing myself I’ll either get too drunk to care or just stumble home to my soft queen bed. I snoop around a bit, checking out different hallways that go off in all directions. Despite its rather square shape from the outside, the floor plan seems random. Art and gig posters adorn the brightly coloured walls. In the bar and lounge, I use reverse psychology and order local beer – Kokanee. Then I pull out my notebook, or should I say “travel diary.” Curiously, in this reverse world making notes about people around you doesn’t arouse suspicion. It was early evening and there were only three of us in the bar and lounge area that consisted of five stools and a large sectional couch with a couple of tables. This room opened up to a larger dining-lounge-stage area. Show billings, posters and flyers were tacked on the upper walls, while the bottom half was covered by woven bamboo matting that was unravelling in parts. The lights are low and Jurassic 5 is playing on the sound system. Beyond this room is the communal kitchen, where people floated in and out making poor man’s pasta and other quick meals. The beer was a good idea, it gave me a chance to relax and go over my fake identity. Obviously, I didn’t want to say I was a reporter and I had to choose another hometown. The problem is I’m a terrible liar. I get teased from friends in the lineup at Safeway, because I actually start to sweat when I use my friend’s Safeway card number. My first victim of deceit was drinking something dark amber and eating hummus and pita. Could she be the first of my new 100 best friends? She looked to be in her late-30s, glasses, short hair, clean-cut. I guessed German, social worker, starting two-month journey across Canada. She was Irish, psychology professor, here for a week. She visited Banff the week before and swam in one of the glacier lakes. This confirmed it – all psychologists are crazy. The next woman I met was from Montreal. She took a break from her one-month English program in Vancouver to see Victoria – for one day. “That’s enough to see this little village,” she said. Quaint suddenly sounded like a bad thing. Only 22, she had just graduated from business school and was thinking about what to do next with her life. She lamented the no-smoking policy in B.C. and was not looking forward to similar rules that were being introduced in Quebec during her absence. The price of beer and cigarettes here was also totally off the scale compared to prices in her native province. Ahhh, Je me souviens. Soon after my second Kokanee, the joint started hopping. The first act had arrived. Arianne, the French Canadian singer flounced over to some friends at the bar and announced, “I’ve got to shave my armpits and put on some deodorant!” The show had apparently begun. It was her first time “headlining” and she was a tad nervous. But what she lacked in experience, she made up for in whiskey and beer. Her songs were a mix of covers and originals, her own music somewhere falling between Stompin’ Tom and Janis Joplin. Sure, she only knew five chords – but they were played with gusto. The number of French Canadians suddenly quadrupled and crowded a table in front of the singer. With patrons joining in on the French songs and people shuttling off past the stage area to the kitchen for peanut butter bagels or canned soup, the place felt like a house party, rather than a bar. By this time, everybody in the room got familiar. Hostels are a bit like sea monkey aquariums – just add water, or in this case beer, and you have instant friends. And in between songs, people started talking to me, rather than the other way around. Oddly enough, I met a lot of “journalists.” Still undercover, I gave them my line about being from Ottawa and just passing through, etc. One person I met apparently worked for a paper in town. Really? I asked. He even had a column appearing the next day. He quickly explained that I wouldn’t see his real name – he wrote under a pseudonym, of course. Apparently, some people are even worse liars than I am. Wasn't that an awesome article kids? Now go back and check out the rest of the reviews!!! |
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