Granada and Cliques

Remember cliques? Those annoyingly tight knit groups of people who are too insecure to be by themselves and fear rejection too much to allow but a few people to enter the group after it's established?

I hate cliques. I hated them in high school and I hate them more at almost 25. Maybe I always just figured I left them behind in the part of my life where I wore Lip Smackers lip gloss and super chunky platform shoes.

I got to Granada last night and found a hostel that is getting great reviews on Hostelworld. When I got there, they were full up, so I followed 2 Belgian guys who had been told to go to another hostel guesthouse farther up the hill.

Those who have never been to Granada can't possibly understand what a foolhardy proposition walking around lost here is with a backpack. Most of the city that I have seen so far is tiny little Arabic tea streets with lots of street vendors selling clothing and jewelry, so they are crowded and difficult to navigate.

We finally made it but I swore I could easily (and happily) have hurled my pack off a bridge and just lived out of a plastic bag with some shampoo, a toothbrush and a change of clothing for the rest of the trip.

The guesthouse was really cute. It was small and there was a terrace where everyone was drinking and smoking and having fun.

I hopped in the shower to freshen up, and came out to make pleasantries with everyone, but it was the oddest thing. It was probably the first hostel I've visited so far where no one bothered to ask your name or where you were from.

At first I thought everyone was just too drunk or too stoned to be interested in the world around them but then I realized that out of the 13 other guests (in addition to the Belgians and I), 10 of them were so far up their own asses that they couldn't have been bothered to even realize 3 new people had joined the group.

2 British girls and one guy from Boston were the only people that even bothered to make conversation with us for about the first 1/2 an hour we were there, and I discovered that the Brits were brand new there within the last hour or so, and later that night overheard 2 of the snotty Aussie girls (yes, I'm surprised, too, but they exist) making fun of the guy because he admitted something sort of personal earlier in the night, so realized we were all sort of outcasts in our own way.

I had heard about the hostel cliques and that with long term guests sometimes they can't be bothered to get to know anyone new since they are transient, but just pal around with those planning to stay for a long stretch themselves. I guess maybe I just assumed that this was the exception rather than the rule, and was even more surprised to discover that none of them had been there longer than a few days.

Anyway, I went out salsa dancing with a few members of the group since the guy from Boston asked me along, but it became clear very shortly after we arrived at the club that the Aussies and a British girl they were hanging out with were not going to have anything to do with me. When one of the other guys came over to ask me to dance, he was abruptly pulled away by one of the Aussies before I could even explain to him that I was waiting on my mojito.

So I left and went back to the hostel to talk to the 2 Brits and the remaining Belgian that wasn't asleep. Sleep wasn't much of an option since those who remained at the hostel went into party mode and played Daft Punk and Justice into the wee hours of the night.

And this morning I woke up, packed my bags and I got lost in Granada again on my way to the other hostel, which I am still looking for.

So yeah, cliques suck. I think my first night in Granada might have been better suited to paying 30 Euros a night for a crappy hotel room. Or maybe a park bench. I bet I could make tons of friends on one of those.