Today I continue my efforts to book my flight to Amsterdam. I'm finally successful and am able to book a flight out Wednesday morning, the 13th of July. This is a bit of a change in my original game plan, considering I wanted to spend three days in Amsterdam and three days in Paris before heading to Germany. I really want to be in Paris for Bastille Day, which is Thursday the 14th. So my new game plan is to do Amsterdam for a day then head to Paris to catch the fire works, then Germany by the weekend.
My flight is actually booked to land in Eindhoven, Holland because thats the cheapest city I could get through the airline I used. I'll have to take a train into Amsterdam from there.
There isn't much on todays Agenda. I do some laundry and relax around the house. I accompany Kristin for a quick walk to the gas station so she can get some cigarettes and a diet coke. I buy a sandwich while at the gas station. When we get home I open the sandwich and it smells of some kind of ungodly odor. I put some mayo on it and try giving it a go. The first bite is immediately spit back out into the trash. I don't really want to know what the comparison is to describe how terrible that sandwich was.
So Allison and LeeAnn, the Fort Worth Nurses, introduced me to something called "Couch Surfing". Couch surfing is a non-profit organization for travelers. It's people all over the world opening their homes to people passing through for a few days and need a couch or spare bed to crash on. In order to couch surf you must create a couch surfing profile on their website. Once your profile is created you can start searching, pretty much, any city in the world to see who you can host you. You get to read and review who looks like they'd be a compatible host for you. You can also read the list of references on people profiles to see how well they hosted other surfers. When you request to surf someones couch they have the right of reviewing your profile and reading any references on your page to see if your a good surfer and have a respectable track record of being a good guest.
I spend a majority of the day making my couch surfing account. Bio, interests, past travels, philosophy on life and photos. I'm officially a couch surfer. My intentions are to couch surf in Paris in hopes that some one can show me a good place to watch the fire works and show me some good sights around the city. I find a couple of good candidates an keep my fingers crossed for a response.
I really like the whole idea of couch surfing. It adds so much more to your traveling experience getting to meet so many interesting people, learning about yourself and others like you. The all around philosophy about couch surfing is to "teach, share and learn". Teaching skills you may have or lessons you've learned through life. What ever you have to offer. Sharing stories and travel experiences, maybe getting an idea for your next destination. Learning from each person you meet. Everyone who crosses your path poses some kind of significance in your life. It also teaches you how to be a good house guest. Doing things for your host like cleaning , fixing something of theirs or blessing them with a nice gift. Everything adds to your experience. Of course it also saves you money! I came across the profile of a guy that did an entire world tour and couch surfed the whole way. That was more than fascinating and impressive. I'm excited to surf my first couch.
Kristin returns from teaching her lawyer student as dusk sets in. Her and I head into Sol to eat some thai food. The Thai restaurant she takes me to is really good. Only down side was no air conditioning. We have some good conversation over some pad thai. We go for a walk around Sol and end up enjoying a beer in the Plaza de Mayo. We underestimate the time and realize we have 30 minuets before the metro closes. We sprint to the nearest station. Kristin leads us onto the wrong train. So we have to back track a station at the next stop to hop on the correct train. I'm really surprised with how not good Kristin is at navigating the city after having been living in it for two months. But then again its not so different from when she moved to Fort Worth to go to school and was calling either my Dad or me about three times a day because of how often she got lost. Gotta love her!
Getting on our correct train we make it to our connecting station. We're running through the metro station to catch the number 4 line. I accidentally run to the wrong one. Kristin yells at me to turn around. Our train we have to catch is about to leave and we're running down the stairs. I make it to the bottom of the stairs and face plant in front of the train and a big group of people who just got off the train. I'm laughing hysterically and I didn't need to know Spanish to know what those people were saying about me. In a panic I get up and jump onto the train just as the doors close. Kristin and I are out of breath and laughing our asses off. We're homeward bound. Never a dull moment!!
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