The relationship between me and couchsurfing.

Yesterday we got guests, which does not happen very often. Last time was probably over a month ago when Wolfi's sister and her friend visited us. These latest guests were not friends or family, but couchsurfers. Now, very short briefing to people who do not know what is a couchsurfer is there even people like that anymore?. Couchsurfer is a person who sleeps on other people's couches, mattresses, sometimes even beds while travelling. The point is that the host won't ask any money for this. The compensation is the joy of meeting new people, possibly from different countries and cultures. If you get lucky you might get a souvenier or the guest might even cook for you. And you might get a new friend. There is several internet pages that help the guests and hosts to find each other. These web pages also try to make it safe in different ways.

When I first heard about this idea I thought that it is brilliant - for other people but maybe not for me. :P I thought I cannot trust strangers so much that I would let them to my home. And I thought I'm not adventurous enough to sleep on other peoples couches, because let's face it, you never know what you're gonna get. And you cannot really complain. Because after all, someone is giving you a free place to sleep. I'm more like 3-star-hotel kind of type. :P

Then I met my fiance, and I got to know that he was very much into this couchsurfing thing. And I thought that he would probably think that I'm cool, if I also would support it. (Like I also prentend to be a "a little bit" more interested about Finland's ice hockey league than I really am. And like I also wanted to hide my age from Facebook, so that he wouldn't think I'm too young and then noticed that he can see it in the couchsurfing profile. I'm sorry, honey, if your first crush was based on lies, but I think you know the real me already. ;) ) So I gathered all my courage, made my profile and some time after that I had my first surfer.

After this first surfer I had a quite long break; the Romanian guy who stayed two night was very nice and polite, but also did not have any plans, so he was following me the whole weekend. And that was a bit, hmmm, disturbing. Some months later I forced myself to try again sounds like I really hate hosting :D and answered "yes" to one American-Russian girl's request. Again the experience was alright. Nothing bad, but also nothing fabulous...

Then I moved here. We've had few couchsurfers, and all of them have been nice. Especially these last ones, who left this morning. Turkish-German couple about the same age as we. We had a lot to talk about, and they cooked very nice dinner for us. We also had a very tempting invitation to Cyprus where the guy lives. I have to say that this was so far the most pleasant couchsurfing experince that I've had. :) 

It was nice to have guests, but I don't mind having some break again. I'm maybe weird, but having guests, especially strangers, takes so much energy of this antisocial little human being. So I'm still not convinced that couchsurfing is for me. Actually I'm not sure if meeting new people in general is my thing, but every now and then I make my self to go out and face the world, because after all we are gregarious animals. ;) Maybe someday I will change into social butterfly or just accept myself as I am. :P

Funny story: I tried to hide my intentions behind couchsurfing on the first time I was here. I asked Wolfi if his couch is free for me as he is couchsurfer and all, because I wanted to visit Wroclaw. Well, to be honest, I was never very interested about the city and I had no intention to sleep on the couch.... ;)