Couchsurfers

I would like to take a moment for a brief testimonial about how awesome couchsurfing.com has been to me this year, but particularly this summer. Over the winter we hosted a handful of passers-through in our humble abode, including Ben and Silja, from Germany, who we really clicked with as couples. Is there a word for couples who are friends? Our time hosting them was so pleasant that we invited them to stay an extra evening, and they accepted! So thoroughly did we all enjoy each others' company.

Then Jack left for the summer, and I found myself alone in a house for the first time. And it's lonely. Grandma Tillie, I really don't know how you do it. I suppose it comes with practice and time, but I find myself feeling so utterly alone at times - and it doesn't help that I'm still working on developing close friendships in this town. Enter couchsurfing. I turned it on after a few weeks of lonesome homemaking, desperate for someone to occupy the same space as me, and that very day - that very hour! - I got a request from Rebecca. She was awesome, uplifting, positive, exciting, and enthusiastically traveling the West Coast as part of a lengthy road trip. Just what the doctor ordered. After her there was Daniel, Marcela, and Bento - a family of three (Bento at just a couple years of age!) who were traveling from Brazil and planning to go all the way down the west coast and into Mexico. They used to run a food truck and Marcela cooked me AMAZING food the two nights that they stayed with me. I nearly didn't host them, because Nikki was in town with her family and staying with me, but they left and I changed my mind and said they could stay after all - the house was too quiet after my nephews were gone. After the Brazilians left, I had a request from Vito, the Australian who works seasonally for parks in Tasmania and with whom I swapped all sorts of philosophical musings around a campfire. As well as some giant grilled pork chops. I initially told him no as well, asking him to use me as a last resort because I had just hosted my sister's family and then this Brazilian family, and I needed a break! But no one else offered to host him, and I couldn't leave a fellow parkie hanging, so I said 'ok' and actually had a very relaxing time with him. Then came Anna, the exuberant Austrian exchange student, trying to see the U.S. before her student visa ran out. She arrived on the bus and put in a solid 12+ miles of hiking and walking around both town and the redwoods while staying with me. Much to both our surprise.

I turned off my host status after that to allow for Jack's visit to be uninterrupted. And then I forgot about couchsurfing amidst my own travels, doctors visits, and a house that seemed impossible to get clean and tidy again. Until this past week.

I decided as part of my happiness project to start hosting again. I turned it on and had a request immediately from Pablo, his brother, and a their friend. Argentinians who would arrive late and could be out in time for me to leave for work in the morning. They were suave, spoke their Spanish with the fluid accent of Argentinians, and I managed to keep up conversation (albeit somewhat haltingly) for maybe half an hour before I decided that 11:30 at night was much too late to try and speak Spanish. In the morning I found my Spanish was even worse... but they bore with me and were out before I left for work without a trace - except for the box of spring rolls they forgot in my freezer.

Tomorrow I'm hosting another threesome - this time three girls from Austria traveling down the west coast. They'll be arriving by bus in the evening. On Saturday I'm scheduled to host Italo, an American with a Peruvian father who lives in Florida but visits San Francisco and the Redwoods every year. He's going to cook me dinner. Huzzah! I've got some Spaniards booked for mid-September and another couple who sent an early request for the end of that month.

In short, I've got my pick of the litter here in Crescent City. Everybody is passing through. I've said no to just as many, if not more, couchsurfers than I've hosted. They don't rub me right in their profile or I just have a bad gut feeling or the timing is just wrong. But every one I've hosted has been great, and provided just the sort of feeling of cooperative space that I desire with my fellow absent from the house. I hope they feel the same.

Well I'd better get to sleep - I've got to spend some time tidying up the house and doing laundry in the morning so things are ready for my couchsurfers tomorrow night!

Until next time!