# Hostel Life

Welcome to Wake Up

I've been living here for 3 weeks now.

Life in a hostel is a strange cross between living in a house and a hotel. You live in a dorm room with between 4 and 10 bunks, and the more people the cheaper it is, so Iv'e mostly been living with lots of people. Which is good, except people snore.
Or return from a night out at 3 in the morning, and stumble around drunk turning on every light, knocking things over and talking really loudly. You never really get a good night's sleep. Especially if you've got a creaky bunk without rails.



The hostel I've lived in for the longest is Wake Up, and in the basement is Sidebar, one of Sydney's most popular clubs. It's a great place with an awesome buzz. And it's great to be able to just get the lift upstairs and fall into bed - no long walk or taxi ride. But you can hear the bass line even from the 7th floor.


Meal time is always quite frustrating. Though the hostels have kitchens, they are always far too small for the ammount of people trying to use them. There are never enough pots or pans, plates or cutlery, so you end up waiting to use something - usually a hob. Though there are lots of stations and hobs, most don't work. And everyone is jostling for the same spaces. And then, of course, people don't clear up after themselves. If you've ever been to uni or lived in a flat with 4 or 5 people, imagine that times 100!!!

I have lived in Wake Up, in the Central Business District for 3 weeks, and that is far too long! This weekend I moved to a suburb called Drummoyne with 3 of my friends. It's a lot cheaper to live outside the city, and quieter too. We now live in Bayside Conference Centre. It used to be an office building, and is in the process of being converted. People only started living here about 2 weeks ago, and there is still a lot of fine tuning going on. But it's another good crowd with a mix of age ranges, nationalities and personalities. The 4 of us, Cara, David, Marcus and I are sharing a room - complete with office desk and filing cabinets. The media room still hosts the boardroom table! It's spacious and comfortable and quiet here. There are no bunks, instead we each have our own single bed, there's a clean kitchen and a bus stop and supermarket round the corner and a short walk to the harbour. Not too shabby at all.