Sacre bleu! There's a frenchmen on my couch!

by Tasha in Couch Surfing, Pre-trip

There are many ways to stretch your balance to fund extra time travelling abroad. Some are easy, some are uncomfortable, and some are plain illegal. One such way (one of the non-illegal ways) we plan to extend our travels is to cut down accomodation costs through the liberal application of couch surfing.

For those not in the know, 'couch surfing' is a method of travel akin to home exchange where those with a spare room, couch or random available surface host those in need, for no charge - merely the experience of making new friends and widening horizons.

photo by: aphasiafilms

This is by no means a new idea, going as far back as a gentlemen hosting his wife's, sister's, cousin's, uncle's, nephew's boy for the summer season. Of course the means has modernised into internet based communities connecting strangers from around the globe. In a process half way between social media and ebay, you are able to advertise yourself, create personalised profiles and leave reviews of travellers youve hosted and homes you've stayed in, which allows for a lot of accountability for good (and bad) behaviour.

Although there are many services for the potential traveller, there remains three major reputable competitors for the surfers of couches, Couch Surfing, Hospitality Club and Servas. A fellow blogger The Dromomaniac has weighed the pros and cons of each a lot more succinctly then I could especially since my own experience is limited and I strongly advise all those interested to read his article. We are surfing primarily through Couch Surfing as the website is easy to use, it has a huge client base (which increases our chances of finding a host) and it's free. Also it has a great vouching system so that there is a lot of transparency between the host and the surfer.

As we are starting our trek within Eastern Europe - a predominately non-english speaking region - we are currently hosting to get a feel for what we are getting ourselves into. Also it's a great way of giving back to the community and making some new friends. Last week in fact we were host to an awesome Frenchman Laurent who after a year in New Zealand is currently expanding his travels to good ol' Aussie. Although he was only here for 5 days, we had an awesome time seeing our city with new eyes.

I always marvel at the little cultural differences that change our world view, such as in Seville, where they don't eat cereal, or even New Zealand, who are so similar to home in many respects, have a inverted colour system for their potato chips - chicken is yellow and salt and vinegar is green! In fact I love touring supermarkets for the biggest culture shocks. Laurent enlightened me that in Europe, as travel between European countries is so easy, it's not really exciting. In fact the as-we-know-it 'gap year' rite of passage is to travel overseas to Australia, which, although English-speaking, is so foreign in attitude and geography. This delighted me in an I Am Legend fashion, that our rite of passage is inverted for a differing society.

We both share a love for comedy and pulled out our comedy greats (Russel Peters and Adam Hills respectively) and spent an evening in a fit of laughter, proving that there are some things that never change.

Laurent ducking down as to not dwarf me in his 7 foot shadow

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