Couch Surfing
If you’ve never heard of it, you should try and get on board. There are two main websites that serve approximately the same purpose, www.couchsurfing.org and www.hospitalityclub.org I am only a member of CouchSurfing but many people belong to both. It’s essentially a trading of hospitality. You create a profile with information about yourself and can host fellow surfers at your home or search profiles to be hosted while traveling.
Of course the very first question everyone asks is “Is it safe?” and the answer is yes. It’s not foolproof and it’s not perfect, but you should think of the safety of CouchSurfing the way that you think about the safety of traveling in general. After a surf or a host you can write a review about your surfer/host indicating the quality of your experience and if a user has multiple negative reviews, that information appears at the top of the profile. I’ve been equating it loosely with ebay reviews – they keep you a little bit more publicly accountable. Just as you would probably be wary of booking a hotel with no photos or reviews, or a tour with no description, you probably wouldn’t (or perhaps shouldn’t) try and surf with or host someone with no information in their profile and no reviews. If you’re careful, smart, and try to be resourceful when things don’t work out the way you planned, then you’ll be fine. There are also a number of security checks and message monitoring done by the CS staff to ensure that people are who they say they are and that no shady business is being transacted. It’s a fantastic resource but, like I said, not perfect.
One of the most frustrating things about traveling for us on our tight budget is spending a lot on lodging. Of course “a lot” is relative, but we would rather be spending our money on trying local food and exploring whatever activities arise rather than skimping on some of that so we can have a decent place to sleep… and not always even terribly decent. When we have to pay a lot for lodging, we can still go over our daily allotment, even if we hardly do anything at all. This is the most basic benefit of CS. I think the actual intention of CS is for this to be merely a side effect of their mission, which is mainly to unite people through travel and the opportunity to closely and genuinely exchange culture. When you surf, you have a reliable introduction to a city, which saves you some time in the aimless orientation upon arrival. You have a friend right when you arrive. You have someone to share stories with and give and get tips for your future travels. You have a more authentic look into the place you’re visiting and how it differs from your own home. I see this as the ideal goal of traveling in general – to really experience a place, not just see it. Since we think about our budget pretty frequently and find ourselves planning around that budget, being able to CouchSurf gives us the best of a lot. It helps us stretch our dollar so we can stay in a place longer and do more with our new friends while helping us to see our current city more closely. There’s also no need to stay with a CSer, you can just meet to hang out and get some information on the city and meet a local.
Like anything there are some drawbacks. There is always the matter of safety – you want to feel like you know a little something about who will be hosting you, since you’ll be sharing their home, and they want to feel like they know a little about you. Because of this, people tend to select more established hosts and surfers, but when everyone that seems reliable as a host is only taking surfers with good reviews or the other way around, getting started can be a definite challenge. The website is also begging to be redesigned and perhaps to include a more quick and easy method of getting the tips and help to get started. We got one pretty rude response in New Zealand from a pretentious host who explained to us our misunderstanding of the CS mission, directed us to some links, and told us there was no need to reply. This brings me slightly to the last unfortunate aspect of surfing, which is that you don’t entirely know how you will get along with your future host. It’s like responding to a personals ad – no matter how much information someone offers up, meeting the actual person will almost always be different than you expect based on a list of interests and a few photos. We had one where we simply didn’t connect with our host.
All in all it is a wonderful resource that has helped us a lot to get a better feel for a city, meet some great people, and help us make it to the end of the trip without going entirely broke.
I’m really looking forward to hosting people in Seattle and I hope I can help them as much as our hosts helped us.
stace
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I was hoping this book would be filled with some unknown gems of rock knowledge. It had a gem or two but it was mostly just Pamela Des Barres’ story as a groupie…. as the title would suggest. It was slightly frustrating to read at times, mainly because it’s based on journals of a teen for the majority of the book and if you’ve ever listened to a teen gush about her favorite band… well it can only go on for so long. She does to a good job of distinguishing what ‘groupie’ meant back in the 60s and 70s as opposed to what it has come to mean in the decades since. When she and her friends were in their height of groupie-ing, they were, more than anything else, lovers of music. Of course they all seemed to have an inflated adoration for people in the spotlight, as secretly I think everyone does to some degree, but they didn’t just want to sleep with musicians, they wanted to be people that musicians found interesting and important. It makes sense, if a man like Jimmy Page who could have anyone in the world by basically just existing decided that he wanted you, it would probably make you feel pretty awesome. Her writing style is not a total favorite of mine but I believe this was her first book and I might be interested to read some of her more recent books, also about her life in the rock scene. It’s a fun read and it was better in retrospect than it was while reading it. If you’re at all interested in rock this will at least be exciting to read for all the name dropping and a pretty vivid window into the past.
stace
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I’ve been meaning to read Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, but this one happened to be sitting on a swap shelf at a hostel so I read it first. Bryson’s writing style is definitely hilarious and it’s hard to believe that some of his anecdotes are actually true. The things people did in the 50s… whew. It was deeply painful to hear in more detail the nuclear heyday that was the 1950s, however, that aside, as the book progressed it became sad to hear about the American gems that were lost in our forward progression. Nuclear toilet seats are best left in the past, but things like family run stores and tree-lined streets with beautifully manicured houses full of character or small family farms on large propoerty blocks with babbling brooks and memories are some things we could maybe have a few more of. Although of course American in the 1950s was an imperfect, gullible place and of course we aren’t heaps more perfect now but some of the beauty of a smaller more personalized and less efficient American died in our pursuit of greatness. It would have been slightly more entertaining if the Thunderbolt Kid had been a more present motif, but his stories are still hilarious and it is still a very worthwhile read. I will be reading many more Bill Bryson books in the near future.
stace
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Have you met my friend?
Her name is Amanda Knox. She is beautiful and wonderful, and I got to visit her twice during my stay in Perugia.
I can’t truthfully say that we were close friends, at best we were very well acquainted – seeing each other only occasionally and usually amongst a few other friends. But the closeness of our relationship didn’t seem to matter. I’ve never been to a prison before and I was nervous about going and seeing her, I was afraid I might be too emotional when I feel like I should be strong and I was afraid I might not be something she needed. I found out that it didn’t matter. My biggest fear of all was that perhaps all the wonderful things I remembered about her might have been diminished by the challenges that have been continually facing her for the past few years. I was happy and overwhelmed to see the same smiling face and vivacious spirit I remember walk through the door and give me a hug.
At times I wonder how her family fights the battles every day. For one, they have to. They know, as I do, that she is innocent, and they do what they must until she comes safely home. But the other reason, is Amanda herself. So much has happened to her, but still she smiles, she laughs, she is infectiously spectacular in every way I remember, and most importantly of all, she has hope. She believes that the truth will bring her justice and when you’re near her, it is impossible not to feel it too. Her family, friends, and supporters keep fighting, keep pushing every day, because she does.
I remember the day her verdict was announced, and I remember feeling a pain so unexpected and so deep in my chest. Since then I’ve thought of her almost every day, hoping she is alright, hoping she finds something good in every day, and now I know that she does. I have failed so many times trying to find the words to describe her. When the topic of the publicity of her case came up and the many things said and written about her, she explained very plainly that those things were not of terrible significance to her, she simply said, I know who I am. If you imagine a person going through the surreal situations she has been living, I expect you might picture something different than who she is. I can’t imagine that it’s easy to remain so gracefully accepting and self-assured, yet she does it.
I worry at times that somewhere in the middle of the amount of publicity and near celebrity of her case, that the publicity itself might become something separate. That perhaps her case has become an open opportunity to be a part of a movement or a greater statement about justice. While I feel fairly sure that the case is and will be of historical and judicial significance for quite some time, and that she deserves all the support of friends and strangers alike, I hope that when you read this you think not about the social and historical implications of the case, but about the fantastic, intelligent, caring woman waiting for freedom. She is someone worth knowing, worth loving, worth everything you might give, because she would gladly give it all back to you and then some. Her name is Amanda Knox and it is a pleasure to know her and I am glad to call her a friend.
Free Amanda and Raffaele.
Stacey Miyahara
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me and my b
As you probably know I live in Seattle and my older sister, Bryn (more commonly and fondly known as b*) lives in Northern California with a little mochi and a Nick. I don’t see her very often and ever since she moved to California I feel a little something like a fat kid without cake, spaghetti without parmesan cheese, celery with no peanut butter. Yes, all food references, but if you’ll note the pattern, the former is something perfectly sufficient without the latter, but made oh so much more marvelous with it. That is my b to me.
We don’t get to go places very often because usually when I go somewhere it’s to California to see her and vice versa, but by a happy miracle we both happened to be in Western Europe at the same time. This is wonderful for a couple reasons:
1) I get to hang out with b on vacation in a place other than her house or our shared childhood house
2) Britt and I have been planning every single day without very much rest for the brains. Bryn is like a vacation planning machine so I get to switch off and enjoy the ride.
She’s also nice and does nice things because she’s a big sister who takes care.
I love her.
she’s my b.
s
* the non-capitalization of the b indicates optimum accuracy. capital B is also acceptable as it is more distinguishable from neighboring letters. but it’s less cute.
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Socially Awkward
Traveling as a twosome is an interesting number when not a romantic couple. We have attracted, on many occasions, the company of a solo traveler. It’s understandable as we are pretty thoroughly non-threatening and the fact that we aren’t dating seems to absolve people of any third wheel mentality as well as keep other romantic couples away from us – couples only seem to link up with other couples. It has, however, cast some blinding light on me and Britt’s differences in social interaction, and the inability (whether purposeful or incidental) of other people to take note of social cues. Something about Brittany is more friendly than me. It makes people want to keep talking to her. It might be because when I begin to feel irritated with the conversation and decide that I’m done listening… I stop listening. Typically turning my whole body in a different direction if possible. Unfortunately, given that there are two of us and Brittany is more polite, she gets stuck listening to the stories, rants, raves, and one-ups of said socially oblivious individual. We’ve both gotten better at bailing each other out of awkward situations, but the unfortunate truth is that no matter how quickly or efficiently we avert, we still need to avert. No matter how much staring off in other directions or repetitions of “Oh, ok, well we were just on our way out,” some people just want to talk to you regardless of whether or not you’re listening.
Here are a few of our favorite run ins:
Conversation baiting. You know, when someone tries to passively urge you to ask a question thus propelling you into what will almost undoubtedly be a very long winded self important epoch. For example, “Well I’ve been waiting for my editor to get back to me. You know I’ve been writing a book. Yeah it’s been a long process. You know I’m supposed to be leaving for a tour to promote my new book.” Fortunately we did not take the bait.
Talking at you. Sometimes even after me, Britt, and a couple other people have tried as smoothly as possible to re-engage conversation with their travel mate, or really any other stranger in the hopes it will end in a less annoying conversation, we still get talked at by someone who hardly leaves any pauses to even respond and could probably continue gabbing for hours if we inconspicuously replaced our bodies with mannequins. A one way conversation to the back of my head and my rolling eyes.
Invitation evasion. We really should have come up with some sort of secret series of hand gestures, eye movements, and blinks to politely indicate when we either want for another person to be invited to absorb some of the annoying being given off by someone we’ve met, or when we want to engage in evasive action. As you know we got sick in Rome and got promptly berated with conversation from a lonely, chatty traveler yapping at our puffy eyes, runny noses, sore throats, sneezes and sweatpants inviting us to dinner. No thx.
Overshare. Sometimes oversharing is funny, or at least tolerably awkward. Other times it’s just regular awkward. For example, “Well my ex wife left me but I think if this book is a bestseller we’ll probably get back together, you know.” “…hm…”
The slow creep. This doesn’t totally fit with the topic as it’s in relation to walking instead of talking, but it also doesn’t warrant a post of its own. It was most prevalent in Cairo. I personally think that the rules of walking should be pretty similar the rules for driving. The slow creep relates to what would be changing lanes, essentially. Imagine you’re walking down the middle of the sidewalk with your friend Brittany, and a man walking to your left wants to be on the other side of you. Instead of hastening his pace to pass in front of you or slowing down to pass behind you, he instead gradually moves closer to you and since you don’t know him and do not wish to have him touch you at all, you also move to the side until you are either right next to the wall, or right on top of your friend Brittany, and then he decides to move behind you. Inefficient. And annoying.
The joys of random social interaction.
stace
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Uno giorno, Cinque Terre
One day for the five towns in this lovely place, especially if you can do the walk between the cities. We had originally hoped to walk the entire 12 km track, however we only had one full day and decided we didn’t want to spend the entirety of our only day in Cinque Terre as sweaty messes. So we opted to take the train between the first three and then walk from the third to the fifth city. A fairly wise choice. Most say that Vernazza (the 4th town) is the most beautiful, and I would say it is probably the most picturesque, which makes the walk from Vernazza to Monterosso, the 5th town, very spectacular. Somewhat similar to New Zealand, much of Italy looks better from afar. Walking in the cities is very nice, however to see it as a whole is more memorable for me. Our last stop in Italy, off to France with us! Au revoir!
stace
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Refreshment
Being away from home has caused me to want odd things. Perhaps the way we are all lead to believe that a pregnant woman wants ice cream and pickles, travelers want anything from home whilst traveling, whether or not they would have wanted it at home.
On the 5 ish months of this trip I have consumed far more Sprite, Haribo Coke Bottle candy, Chocolate bars, bottled water, ice cream, and McDonalds than I would have in probably two years at home. What I’m thinking is that anything that either makes you feel refreshed (like Sprite or a fresh bottle of icy cold water) or reminds of home or your friends (Coke Bottles. Hi Sam.) is something you want even more when the actual home and friends are far away. The McDonalds is usually in a cheap need for speed, convenience, and reliability. The Golden Arches are pretty consistent around the globe. I think it’s also a combination of having unknown food all the time. Not to say that all food is abroad is a curious concoction, but rather that you don’t always know what you’re getting, how good its going to be, or most importantly, how it might affect you later with respect to your living situation (sorry if that grossed you out. it hasn’t been a problem yet if you were wondering). Things like bottled soda and prepackaged candy provide a comfort of predictability that sometimes is lacking when you live from a backpack.
I will kick the candy and McD habit when I get home. Not entirely on the candy front obviously, as Coke Bottles are a pretty necessary element to any big screen cinematic endeavor. But it is odd and slightly fun to notice how you adjust in a somewhat abnormal environment.
stace
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We couldnt quite afford to stay in one of the five towns, so we were put up once again at a campsite a few towns to the north- which turned out to be nice actually, since the train was really easy and the campsite has a free shuttle to/from the station.
We technically only had one full day in the area so we tried to take advantage of it. Since I didnt really have the proper walking shoes we only did half of the Cinque Terre walk- and we made a funny observation.
The places look better from far away.
I mean, not that the towns aren’t cute- but up close you can see all the cracks and the fading paint. From a far everything looks colorful and somewhat whimsical. Its the same thing we had going in New Zealand on the Abel Tasman- from above the beaches and water were amazing, but once you got down onto the beach, well- there you were, on a beach.
I would say that the Cinque Terre is beautiful, and interesting- these little town precariously perched on hill sides- but I think we did it right in staying just a day. We saw the towns, we had a little walk, and we felt good about it.
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Arting in Florence
So far my favorite art experience. It’s oddly surreal to see paintings and sculptures you’ve studied in Art History up close and personal. It’s like seeing a celebrity. A part of you feels excited to be in the know, another part believes it could be fake, and yet another part feels slightly let down that even with all the hype, just as a celebrity is simply a person, a painting however famous, is still simply a painting. However, I was very impressed with the paintings in the Galleria d’Academia in Florence. The two dimensional paintings appear hauntingly three dimensional and the statue of the David must be over 10 feet tall, and although we had discussed his size in class, it was still surprisingly larger than I had anticipated.
This is also the place were I felt most compelled to make some decisions on how I feel about art restoration. It’s an ongoing discussion for a number of disciplines and a number of reasons and I think that I have finally decided that I am opposed to art restoration, but in favor of preservation. Although I see the value in restoring a work to it’s original state to allow those of us not born during the Renaissance to view and interpret, I am of the opinion that it tampers with the authenticity of the work even though it aims to restore only what was originally there. I see things like cleaning and preservation as things that maintain what was originally part of the work by either removing dirt and residue that was not originally an element of the work, or trying prolong the life of the original painting. I know it is a terrible tragedy for elements of history to be lost entirely – civilizations wiped out by natural disaster, works of art lost to fires and the like – but personally I have the feeling that to impose something new to a painting through restoration causes something to be lost as well.
As you can maybe tell I’ve been trying to engage my brain more often, since we’ve had about 5 months of minimal cerebral activity. Feel free to contribute to my discussion.
stace
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