Couchsurfers

About 2 weeks ago I updated my profile on the travel website couchsurfing.org. It's a website created for travelers who would prefer to stay at someone's home than in a hotel, and supported by people who don't mind hosting a few nomads for a night or two on their couch. I had been registered on the site for about 2 years already without ever having explored it. When my good friend Cynthia registered herself on the site and reminded me of its existence I decided to give it a second try. Familiarizing myself with what the site is about and what kind of people are signed up, I quickly realized that this is totally up my alley. Meeting foreigners? Check. Being hospitable? Check. Possibly making a new friend or two? Double check. I got to work on my profile page, posting some pictures from my travels and some of me just doing my thing here in Milan. Added what languages I speak, some of my interests, and a blurb about myself and what kind of people I enjoy meeting, and most importantly, I changed the status of my couch to "available". I kid you not: within minutes of my profile update my email inbox was receiving so many requests to sleep on my couch that I didn't even have time to respond to all of them. Since the update, I have been receiving about 20 email requests per day from travelers all over the world to sleep on my couch! I never knew it was such a desirable destination.

I love the idea of hosting people. Even if at the moment I myself am not out exploring the world I can always live vicariously through the stories of others, and even hope that when I do put my traveling boots back on that someday, somewhere, someone might just return the favor. Through all these requests I decided to ease myself into this whole couchsurfing phenomenon by accepting to host a young American woman working as an aupair in Berlin, traveling through Milan for a night on a vacation in Italy. She's arriving next weekend, which worked out well because I knew my roommate Maria wouldn't be around as I didn't want to intrude by inviting strangers into our home. When I told Maria about our future visitor her reaction was, "Oh it's such a shame I won't be here then to meet her!" Little did I know that Maria's also registered on couchsurfing, and has already done some surfing of her own in Barcelona. Judging by her reaction I thought it'd be fine to ask her if we can host other people, and so last night we had our first couchsurfers stay in our living room!

Three 20 year old Swedish guys from Gothenburg spent the night at our apartment and I was proud to introduce them to Milan by way of an aperitivo. In addition, we also have a cat who's couchsurfing this week as our friend went away on vacation! So our house is full of surfers!

In the next few weeks before I go on vacation we'll be having lots more couchsurfers… so stay tuned for some updates!