I was explaining how hostel life has a similar dynamic as summer camp to a new friend in Paris when she interrupted me.
"Summer camp?"
"Yeah, like sleepaway camp you go to as a kid."
"Like in The Parent Trap? We don't have that."
So the concept of summer camp apparently does not exist in New Zealand. The young Kiwis instead spend the summer on family vacation, or stay put at home.
Well, as my readers (reader? I'm not sure who's still reading this blog...) are mainly American, I can explain to you how hostel life is like summer camp. Friendship is easily earned with "Want to have a drink downstairs?". This leads to going sightseeing together, and the excitement of travel inevitably bonds newfound friends. Just as in summer camp, the process of going from complete strangers to close friends is extraordinarily and wonderfully short.
I met Paul and Lily outside of the bike rental shop in Blois, France. A couple in their 60s, they had traveled from California to bike the Loire Valley.
Talking with Paul, I realized that the idealistic dream of so many American 20-year-olds to travel the world, unrestrained by careers or families, was attainable. Paul's early life included hitchhiking through Europe for 5 years, spending months working on an oil rig in Venzuela, and teaching English at a military base in Germany. Until beginning a career as a professor, he had lived by crashing on couches and staying in hostels, taking on seasonal jobs whenever money was short.
He did all of this in the 80s, but such a lifestyle is still apparently possible today. I met a girl, Kori, who booked a one-way flight from her remote hometown in Alaska to Barcelona. I met her in Paris, where she was looking for work.
I wouldn't be satisfied traveling full time, though, as I love coding too much. As an accountant and a professor, Paul and Lily represented a novel concept: Traveling the world alongside a successful career. I wonder if this will be possible.
Paul, Lily and I spent the next 48 hours biking from Chateaux to Chateaux together.
This post has been all over the place, but the best motif mirrors that of this week's This American Life broadcast: The Kindness of Strangers.
To finish up, here's a photo of Chateaux Chambord: