See ya later alligator... and a short tale of hostels

---

This mornin we jumped in2 the car and hiballed it 2 florida city which is right next 2 the everglades national park. It was only a 40 min drive so we got there in good time, checked in2 the hostel and headed straight 2 the national everglades national park 4 a bit of steve irwin action.
The everglades is really a really wide river, but real shallow which is full of all sorts of creatures that wouldn't think twice about bitin off a limb or injecting u full of venom.
On this trip i half expected not see much actual wildlife but within a few minutes we had spotted a tonne of lizards and a couple of turtles just swimmin round. Then a few minutes later we saw a big alligator just sat layin on the surface of the water, just soakin in the sun, well within strokin distance. Throughout the day we saw loads more. Some big, some small but all lookin real mean.

I'm just gonna talk a little bit about the whole hostel experience for a while. A few people will know where this story is gonna lead.
Most hostels have been adequate. Some a bit dirty, some exceptionally good. It takes a while to get used 2 sharin a room with several other people but you soon do. Sometimes if the hostels real empty then it can just be me and ben.
There seem 2 be a few unwritten hostel rules about ur general behaviour, just general politeness and common sense. One is if u return 2 the room real late u don't turn the light on, u just make ur way 2 ur corner of the room and climb in2 bed as quietly as possible. Another rule is u don't spend ages in the bathroom, just be as a quick as possible as there is usually 10 people waitin 2 use it. Occasionally there r the rule breakers. For example in Boston a guy in our room went in2 the bathroom and was in there for an hour and half. What the hell can u do there in that time. I thought he was redecoratin or somethin but that wouldn't have taken that long. There were for other people in the room and this was first thing in the mornin. I guess u catch my drift.
Another one of these rules is that u don't sleep naked! For one the last thing i wanna be starin at first thing in the mornin is some blockes genitals. U especially shouldn't sleep naked if u sleep walk!

Here's the story. We were in the hostel in florida city which is actually a real fine hostel which in would highly recommend so please don't let this story scare u off. I was stayin up late as was just perusin the internet. Ben went bfore me and sent me a text with the gist of "weirdo in the room" this was not as suprise as most of the hostels we have stayed in have had weirdos. For example in New Orleans there was a guy we called ax man because of his general weirdness. So yeah this didn't reall suprise me... boy was i in for a shock!!
I went 2 bed a bit after midnight and soon began 2 drift off, however i was woken by the 'weirdo' across the room talkin in his sleep. I turned over and noticed he had got out of bed in his sleep, not only that he was bare arse naked!! He began 2 walk towards the bathroom which incidentally was on the way to my bed but instead of turnin in2 left 2 the bathroom he began 2 crawl in2 the bottom bunk... which happened 2 be where i was tryin 2 sleep. So there i was in the early hours of the mornin with a 50 year old naked, hairy guy trin 2 crawl in my bed. I'll be honest i was scared. In a high pitch i shouted out "what r u dong??!!" this seemed 2 wake him up and he muttered an embarresed apology and made his way back to his corner of the room. However instead of gettin back in bed he stood by the door naked 4 a few minutes, before he began walkin back towards me, this time i was ready 2 bop him on the nose, but thank god he chose the bathroom this time he returned back 2 bed.
Needless 2 say i did not sleep well that night, Ben thought it was hilarious.
Peace

---