Training: Couchsurfing – Paris!
Writing by Doogie on Friday, 3 of August , 2007 at 3:28 am
From here I’ll start in English so the other CS’ers can also understand what I am writing about them.
So I woke up here in the lovely Paris. The CS meeting is “somewhere” on a bridge. We park our car “somewhere” on a free parking spot and the travel god is very kind to us because we arrived at 200m from the meeting point. There is like 40 people sitting on the bridge playing a trivia game. One girl is standing on a bench and she asking the questions. She looked more like a young cute opera singer. Later I heard she actually IS a cute young opera singer. I’m more in “FOOD” mode so I’m not really in the mood for social contacts & trivia games. I’ll do that tomorrow on the CS sightseeing trip. That night we get the key from Freds place. Fred is a full time CS addict. He lives for CS and knows everybody, just like everybody in CS-Paris knows fred. Finally a bed. I take freds “40 years of Playboy” photobook and fall asleep with a big smile on his couch.
The cs sightseeing trip was a blast! There are like 25 people from all around the world at the meeting point. Everybody has his own story and like I have been in Paris for at least 5 times I take my time to talk to everybody. 
There is the Bruce Lee Italian with his huge camera(Italians are like the Chinese tourists of europe 
). The American who is doing a world trip around the magic number 7. 7 continents in 7 months with 7000 euros or something. The stock market Australian who is traveling the around the world untill money runs out and selling and buying shares every night. “At the moment the market is good so I don’t worry that much. I’m doing this for Almost 6 months now. I started with 5000dolars in shares” he said to me. Whoah I’m so jealous. The green haired poi playing girl from Canada, the cute red haired opera singing girl, the green eyed enthousiastic quebeque girl, the cute turkish sisters…and many others.
So we end up in a bar where we eat. Before I know it I’m sitting at my table surrounded by CS girls and time passes by verrrry quickly sharing my food with the girls. I’m allready looking forward to the CS benefit party tomorrow. Just to see my new made friends again. 
We Meet francois, my first impression was, Ok he’s deffinatly IT. Wronggg, he’s a salesmen. Close. He will be our host. He’s also a CS addict. I’m his 126th couchsurfer or something. He is so proud about the amount of CS’ers he got over I’m surprized there is no wall in his room with pictures from every CSer and a shrine with candles in front of it. But maybe that would be too creepy .
The CS work meeting:
The day after there is a couchsurfing workmeeting in a park. I was very impressed by how a bunch of volunteers from all around the world could work in such a consistent and professional way. It is really undescribable how much good ideas they had and how descisions where made at the end of the meeting. It was almost scary how everything went so smoothly. I never thought something like that was possible from some volunteers. Couchsurfing is growing extremely fast and if they keep it up in that way CS will become a real phenomenon. I would start to sell my hotel stocks immediatly if I was the Australian guy. The rest of the day I bonded with Ben, an Australian travelling for 16 months now, drinking cheap wine while talking about music, girls, movies, travelling, our country and some guy stuff.
The cs party: in the evening there was a huge cs benefit party. Allmost only CS people where present. Whow yeah baby, what a party. I had so much fun talking to all the travelers. Dancing with the girls and almost getting dragged into the bed of a horny french girl but finally ending up with Ben, and the 2 turkish girls drinking cheap wine in the streets of Paris. Before I know it we end up at the girls hosting place. Sima and Hüma are both very cute lovely Turkish girls from Istanbul.
Ben wakes me up. We crashed at Russels place. Ben wants to go home. I kiss the turkish girl next to me goodbye but she doesn’t wake up. We didn’t really sleep that well so when we arrive back at Antoines we sleep untill late in the afternoon. Time to go home I think. But still, I met some really nice people I want to see again. So I descide to stay another day! Nothing really special today. Most of the time we are driving in circles in Paris. Nanouk, she really has some serious guts driving with her 2 month driving experience in the center of Paris. She is a bit tired and we almost got killed in a car accident. Luckily the poles she hit where in plastic so survive and the car has just a scratch. We switch host and we go to a CS karaoke party, not really my thing… so I go explore the red district. I miss my friend Ben Exploring the red district would be much more fun with my new friend. Apparently you can get a free drink and a striptease for 5€! He didn’t receive my messages so I end up with the Turkish girls again at Russels place. Not that bad company after all.
The P-Picknick: Sima and Hüma are really pleasant to be around. They are constantly gigling untill one of them falls asleep en restart in the morning when they are both awake.
In the morning I show them Pére Lachaise. We walk around for a few hours and finally we prepare for “The P-Picknick”. A picknick near the Seine where everybody has to dress up as something beginning like the letter P. I didnt know how hard everybody would try to find a costume and stick to the concept but I didn’t really care. I just went nuts making my costume with the help of Sima and Hüma. Time to do some experimental travelling.
Lonely Planets “Horse head adventures”: “Test normal standards of social behaviour and etiquette by drawing attention to yourself in an outlandish and potentially absurd manner.”
So I take the local news paper and some scissors and I dress up as the Paper Peter Pan with a Pink Pterodactyle on my head. Huma as a Potatoe and Sima as a Pimp. Good, with a Pink Pterodactyle on my Paper hat I am ready to walk through Paris.
When we arrive the picknick looks like a huge success! Almost everybody is dressed up: Pirates, a Palm reader, a Plane, a Pixie, Panters, a Pig, Prophets, Prostitutes, Pervert Police, Pocahontas, Pint of Pelforth, Pimps, Pictures, etc… We drink, we laugh and time flies so fast. Too bad that the wind tears off my costume so by the end of the night as just me again. I don’t exactly remember how but I hook up with the green eyed Quebueckoise ( the Panter) and walk with that girl through Paris. People think I just hooked up with a kinky hooker dressed as a panter. Looking for more drinks and more laughs we finally end up at (crash into) the Pervert Polices‘ place. I will not forget that day soon.
The last day: I wake up I notice everything is dead. No more batteries in my cell but also my camera and laptop… I go with Anne-Marie (aka the Pink Panther) to see the end of the Tour the France. Im wasted from the day before. We say goodbye, she is off to London, I’m off to… euh… I didn’t know exactly. I’m here in the middle of Paris, my stuff “somewhere”, no cell to contact Nanouk or Duke and tired as hell. Well… so I descide to look for an internet Cafe. Great! I see there is a CS “free hugs” campaign near “Paris Beach”. Aaah well, why not… lets go hug some strangers.
Hmmm… the free hugs thing does a strange thing with me-head. after I huged some strangers I notice a real flow of positive energy. Maybe its because I was so tired but enter a natural high I seldom have with real drugs. I’m filled with positive energy and forget I’m tired untill I stop hugging. I also get really good at convincing people to give and receive a big hug 
. Yet So simple but such a great experience! Whow I actually think it changed me somewhere inside.
We end up at the eifel tower where I find Nanouk and Duke. I go to bed early. Tomorrow I’m hitching with Ben back to Belgium.
