The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost Read Free

“Hostels are generally laid-out dorm-style, often with large single-sex rooms and bunk beds, although some offer private rooms for families and couples. They sometimes have kitchens and utensils for your use, bike or moped rentals, storage areas, and laundry facilities. The Internet is becoming an increasingly common hostel amenity, though Web access is often via mind-numbingly slow connections.” It sounds kind of like sleepaway camp. And it’s by far the cheapest accommodation going, which means it’s for me.
    Besides being at the top of an unforgivingly steep cobblestone hill, my hostel, Kinlay House, is fitted with a seemingly impenetrable door. After I’m buzzed in, I manage to pull the handle atthe exact wrong moment, getting nothing but an unsatisfied click as it relocks. After three tries, I finally get the timing right and find myself red-faced but inside. An unimpressed blonde slouches behind a counter, her Rapunzel hair twisted into a thick braid that hangs drowsily over one shoulder. Her green corduroy dress has patches for pockets. Like the girls in the airport, she is surrounded by maps and pamphlets advertising attractions and tours. Here, however, there seems to be no organizing order to the papers, which are fanned out on the counter and stuffed into hanging racks behind her. She’s tracing her middle finger on one for Dublin historic walking tours.
    â€œHow many nights are you staying?” she asks in an accent I can’t quite place—Russian, maybe.
    When I tell her two, she glances at her computer but doesn’t ask if I have a reservation. Since it doesn’t seem like a piece of information that would strike her as particularly interesting, I keep it to myself.
    She eyes my massive suitcase before informing me with a smirk that my room is on the third floor. I hand over forty euros.
    â€œThere’s an elevator, but you won’t be able to fit inside,” she tells me with unchecked glee. “The stairs are right behind you.”
    Freshly polished, slippery-looking oak steps spiral high into the air. But I have made it this far, and the thought of collapsing onto a bed fuels my determination. I twist. I pull. I curse. I am breathless when I finally reach the third floor; I lean against the railing, panting. My gaze follows drifting smoke to a room down the hall where three pairs of bare feet stretch out toward a blaring television.
    A dripping male body in a discolored towel and flip-flops emerges from the door across from me. A high-pitched, virginal “Oh!” slips out of my mouth before I can stop it. In my college dorm, half-naked guys strolled through the halls at all hours, but I’m caught off guard now. Since there was a check-in area, I’ve revised my notion of hostels from a summer camp to some placemore like a cheap hotel, where people typically remain fully clothed in the common areas. Shower dude ignores my prudish exclamation and continues down the corridor, trailing squishy wet footsteps.
    My room is the farthest one from the stairs. The hobbit-sized door rests askew on its hinges, forcing me to lean both down and slightly to the right in order to enter. A guy my age with shaggy blond hair and the shadow of a light beard is propped up on one of the beds, reading a guidebook.
    â€œOh!” I respond stupidly for the second time in three minutes. I knew this hostel was co-ed, but I didn’t realize that meant there would be boys in the
same room.
    â€œHey,” he says. It’s an infinitely more articulate greeting than anything I’ve offered so far.
    The room’s furnishings are minimal. A low table accompanies each bed. All four mattresses sport matching maroon sheets with colorful quilts neatly folded atop. I survey the church steeple and small swath of Dublin rooftops through the triangular window above my bed. The sun is lost behind clouds that have descended rapidly upon the city in the last ten minutes. A