Last Night

I used to be a light sleeper but sleeping in hostels has forced me to adapt to sleep through just about anything. The hostel I am staying in here in Sydney is one of the smallest rooms I have stayed in. Somehow there are 6 beds in this room and each one of them is occupied. Last night one of the local bars was having a promotional night where they invited everyone at our hostel to have free dinner and free drinks. If you are staying at a place that is charging $10 a night, chances are you are not going to miss a free meal, so the entire hostel made their way over to The Gaff to cash in their meal ticket. I got my free meal and hung out for a while enjoying the spectacle of folks drinking as much as they could, as if they could get really drunk on the free booze and store it for another night, rather than thinking of, oh, I don't know, alcohol poisoning.

After some dancing and hanging out I ventured back to the hostel and into bed. A couple of my bunk mates were already asleep and within the hour we had all taken to our beds. I read a little bit, turned out my light, and began to sleep. Before I could fall asleep, however, everyone went insane. Let me fill you in on the cast of characters here first. There is the half German, half Chinese girl who is about 5 feet tall and can't weigh more than 90 pounds, she is a tiny thing, but very nice. Then there is Claire. She is French, a bit quiet, but a nice girl. There is the only other American in the hostel in my room and he is from Cleveland. He smokes a lot and is always showing me pictures of his dogs, which are huge canines. Then there are the two British lads. They are traveling together. They are great fun, always cracking jokes and saying things that wouldn't be funny, but since they say it with their accent it becomes hilarious.

So, as I am counting sheep, waiting to go to sleep I hear this snoring that sounds like a lion snarling. I really have not heard snoring like this before, but sometimes alcohol induced snoring is the loudest. I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but I knew it wasn't the British guys because they were still awake playing cards. I heard Chin, one of the British guys, say,"she's a little one but she can roar," referring to tiny German. "Is that half pint?" I asked, not believing that a person of her size could produce such a sound. "Yeah, bewildering, idn it?" Then, as if choreographed, the French girl started speaking frantically in French as if startled. She blurted out a couple of lines and the British guys and I quickly shut up, thinking she was angry at us. A few seconds later she rattled off some more frantic French, this time sitting straight up in her bed. The French girl was the first person to fall asleep, so we had figured out that she was sleep talking, it sounded like sleep arguing though. Frenchy said a couple more things then laid back down. The Brits and I were stunned, then we started laughing hysterically. With the snoring and the sleep arguing, it was just a strange few minutes.

It didn't stop there, though. The beds in the room are bunk beds and the layout is: French girl and German girl on one bed, me and one of the British blokes on another, and the other American and the other Brit on the last. The French girl had not piped up for a little, but the German girl was still sawing logs when the British guy who wasn't on the bunk with me started digesting his alcohol, which gave him a bad bit of gas. He was not discreet about his flatulence either. He was loud and giggled like a child after each time he relieved himself. It didn't smell great at all. His gas was so bad that it woke up the other American guy. Once he awoke he could now hear as well as smell was going on above him. He piped in with his frustration, "hey man every time you fart it goes right through your mattress and into my face." The British guy came right back and said, "I'm sorry, mate. They were serving cheap alcohol at the pub and it rips right through me." As he said this he ripped off another fart. I couldn't help but laugh. I just started laughing hysterically at everything that was going on and soon everyone else started to laugh as well. In the span of ten minutes we went from normal room to mental institution.

Eventually things started to die down. The British guy digested more regularly, I am guessing the French girl settled her dispute, and the German girl ended turning on her side and stopped snoring. For the next half an hour before I fell asleep, though I would go through giggle fits, just shaking my head at what had transpired. It was like feeding time at the zoo, where everything comes alive for a moment. The next morning everything was business as usual, though. No one said a word about it except for the British guy on the top bunk from me. We passed each other in the hall and he stopped me and asked, "what do you think that French bird was so pissed about?" I laughed and told him that I'm changing rooms if she tries to smother one of us with a pillow in her sleep. I was a little sad that I only have one night left here, but I'm starting to think it is a blessing in disguise.