Young Woman Credits World of Memories to Youth Hostels

“I was sitting on some yak skins in the open back of an army truck driving through some heavy snow in Tibet and my feet were freezing. I didn’t know if my feet were going to make it. . . .

“The pedestrian traffic in Shanghai is like what we have on our freeways and I was carrying my camera in the same way as a mother who was protecting the baby in her arms. . . .

“I spent time helping Mother Teresa in Calcutta. One day there is like a year of volunteering here. The work is so intense there. . . .

Those are some recollections of world traveler Karen M. Zaustinsky, 24, who was able to experience those moments by temporarily living in international youth hostels, similar to the one she manages in San Clemente. There is also a hostel in Fullerton.

“I wouldn’t have been able to take those trips without the hostels,” she said, pointing out that a night’s stay in the Hong Kong hostel only cost $1.25. It costs members $7 a night in the San Clemente International Youth Hostel. Non-members pay $10.

Her yearlong travels in 1986-87 to 40 countries cost $6,000 “but there would be no way for me to take that trip without staying in hostels,” she said. She also cooked and helped clean as part of the rental fee for her dormitory-style bunk bed.

She feels “youth hostel” is misleading to older travelers. “It’s open to youths of all ages,” she said. “There is no age limit.”

She traveled alone to most places, she said, and noted that “the hardest part is doing something new, but once you’ve been to a hostel, you find that everyone has the same interests and worries. I think I adapt nicely to new situations.”

Zaustinsky also is no wallflower. “I’m not the person who sits in the corner,” she said, “and it’s not scary for me to initiate a conversation with anyone.

“I feel good about what I have accomplished in my travels and in my outlook on life and the people I have met. All those things give me a wider understanding of the world and people.”

South America and Africa are future destinations for Zaustinsky. “I have an interest in other cultures and I learn firsthand what is going on in the world when I’m traveling,” she said.

And that gives her a feeling of accomplishment. “When I go back to school or where I go from here,” she said, “I’ll have experienced what is involved in the world.

“It has given me some great rewards and pleasure.”

It’s called “Hard Rock Cafe” and they mean it, but what is served is not what you eat, even though it would give you iron and minerals.

It’s the annual display at the upcoming Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa of six different complete, full-course meals. The event has been catered for two years by Aliss and Margaret Nixon of Arizona.

The display includes turkey, pork chops, hamburgers, chicken, bacon and eggs, prime rib, a fish dinner, lemon meringue pie, cauliflower, peas, coffee and even toothpicks.

Although tantalizing and delicious looking, everything consists of rocks the two have found in Arizona and California deserts during the past 30 years.

Old soldiers never die and old buses don’t get junked or sold for parts, at least not ol’ Bus No. 1201, the Orange County Transit District’s first bus.

It’s now idling away in the West Coast Motor Coach Museum in La Puente.

“There was some talk about scrapping it for parts,” said RTD spokeswoman Claudia Keith, “but a number of drivers and others with sentimental feelings for the bus helped save it.”

The bus was originally bought in 1972 and served 14 years on active duty. It took a strong bus driver to handle the 41-passenger vehicle.

Unlike today’s buses, it didn’t have power steering.

Acknowledgments--Villa Park resident Frank J. De Santis was presented the Italian Order of Merit from Italian Consul General Alberto Boniver, who nominated De Santis to honor his interest in and support of his Italian heritage. De Santis is president and co-founder of the Orange County American Italian Renaissance Foundation.