I’m getting old or boring… or both

I sit here researching hostels for a two week long backpacking trip I’m taking next week across Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece. As I sit here filtering my search down on hostelworld, I suddenly dread the idea of walking up long hills to find kitschy small hostels. I’m narrowing my search by the distance to the bus station so I don’t have to walk that far. I’m kicking out the hostels with high party ratings in the hope of getting a bit of sleep. I’m thinking about taking the more expensive trains over a crowded bus so I can have space to “stretch” and so I don’t have to worry about using a gross toilet.

Holy Macpac. What kind of backpacker have I turned into?

An old one? A boring one?

When did this happen? How? Why? Ahhh!! I swore I would never become that guy who went to sleep in the hostel at 10:30 with his eye mask and his ear plugs (*note to self – remember to go buy extra sets of ear plugs) but now, I get that guy. I really get him. What’s so wrong with going to bed at 10:30 in Amsterdam. Or with skipping the pub crawl in Prague. Or the all night body shots in Ibiza.

A whole fracking lot, that’s what!

I’m 25 for crying out loud, I’m not 50 (I don’t think I have any blogger friends over 50, so hopefully I have successfully not offended anyone by using this age. I really had to stretch tho. I had originally put 30).

Being on a booze cruise in Greece for 8 days is really going to put my partying bones to the test. So far the itinerary that has been e-mailed to me contained activities like: drinking, ouzo shots, all-night dance parties, floating in intertubes while drinking, drinking on islands, beer bongs, night clubs, shotgunning, drinking on a boat. I’m scared. No seriously. I’m like, on top of a building about to jump without a parachute scared and mostly that I’m going to tarnish my reputation as a professional partier. The only people I know on the cruise are people whose last memories of me were likely wiped out with a bottle of Triple Distilled Barton’s Vodka (at $11/handle). I also haven’t partied with most of these people since I was in my teens. And if that’s what they’re expecting, I’ll likely be spending August 1-8 crushing expectations, not cans.

So what exactly is it that old boring people do in preparation for a binge drinking boat party?