CouchSurfing

That's Mihai making me breakfast before I set off for Milan from Munich. I stayed over at his place even though we just met the night before via the Internet. Shit, this sounds like it could be an irresponsible homosexual tryst, but it's just an average CouchSurfing story and completely platonic.

I've mentioned CouchSurfing at least a few times on this blog, but don't think I've gone into too much detail about it. It's a simple principle: a website that unites travelers. You stay with people on their couches/floors/spare beds for free and you can host people on your couch/floor/spare bed. I won't get into it much more, it might be boring.

When I recently hitchhiked from Germany to France, I stayed with a couple CS hosts along the way. It's kinda a hassle to organize this when you're hitchhiking without a phone since you don't know when you're going to get into a city you don't know, and you don't know where you will wind up after your last ride, but I made it work twice on really short notice.

This attests more to the great hospitality of the hosts I stayed with more than my resourcefulness. I was lazy and had only about a day to organize myself to stay in both Munich and Milan. I don't think I'd have the patience and endurance to couchsurf and hitchhike all the time like the good man of letters Jamie Maslin, who has done so from one end of the earth to the other.

Anyway, on a windy day in Germany I was sitting in Mihai's temporary apartment thinking about CouchSurfing and it (re-)dawned on me how fantastic the site and community are. There I was in Munich, sitting on a couch with a Romanian kid who just started a new job in a new country, chatting away about traveling and learning a bit about Romanian linguistic history.

I'd really taken CouchSurfing for granted, thinking that it should only be natural that I can meet people who are interested in my travels and would like to help me out with a place to stay and recommendations for things to do around town. That's what I would want to do for travelers, so that's what I expected.

The next night, the Polish truck driver that brought me to a gas station just outside of Milan insisted, without speaking any English at all, that he call up the host that had agreed to let me crash at her place at the last minute, and get her to pick me up so I didn't have to find my own way into town.

Antonella drove up and ferried me away, and brought me directly to one of the best meals of my trip at restaurant and indoor bocce hall that was tucked back off the street in the shade and bordered by train tracks. There was no menu and the meal was just freshly made pasta with a creamy sauce and the meat of some wild bird that was beyond her translation abilities.

It was the sort of place no one would ever find on their own, and it was cheap, atmospheric, and so goddamed tasty. And it was all enjoyed with a chat with someone who lived in the area, who had more to say to me than just how to get to the nearest metro stop, or where the supermarket was, or what time the museum closes.

CouchSurfing is great for saving money alone, but as I see more and more clueless backpacker tourists on the beaten path doing the same mundane shit in the same oblivious state around the "must-see" sites and cities of Europe, I've ceased to simply be appreciative of the hospitality and advice I receive from CS hosts, and am now truly grateful. It's natural to go somewhere and want to meet people who live there - surprisingly hard to do as a tourist - and very fortunate that there is such a website to make it happen.

Thanks to all the people who've hosted me and kept me off the streets, out of hotels, and brought me to places more interesting than museums and souvenir shops.