My favorite form of travel magic is stumbling into finding fantastic people with whom to share the experience of living and working overseas, or traveling for an extended amount of time, or just generally making a life in a way that looks different from the norm. Expat life brings people of all nationalities together, bound by the commonality of being foreigners in a new place and trying to figure out how to thrive in a host country. The connections I have with my friends here are invaluable for feeling settled in a new place.
Thanks to the internet and social networking, it’s become easier and easier to make these connections- definitely easier than when I was roaming around Japan in 2005, carting a huge Lonely Planet book around. One of the most popular places to make these connections is Couchsurfing, a huge hub of travelin’, likeminded strangers, gathering together online to give and take lodging, free of charge. The tagline of “Stay with friends you haven’t met yet” is endearing, right?
Hosting Travelers via Couchsurfing
Couchsurfing can take credit for fostering interesting, brief encounters with strangers from all over the world, complete with late nights over good food exchanging travel stories, tips, and future plans and dreams for roaming the globe. Hosts often become future guests, and vice versa.
The people you meet via Couchsurfing are bound to be interesting, for better or worse. Yes, worse is in there, too, because I’m sure no one is surprised that there is, of course, a flip side to the positive.
It’s not necessarily overtly negative, but it’s not as enjoyable, or idealistic, and can be tedious and annoying. Hey, we’re all people, messy piles of humanity, it’s bound to happen. I can’t say I would consistently be an enjoyable person to be around after weeks and/or months of snatching sleep on a parade of strangers’ couches, indulging in intermittent showers and cobbling together each leg of the trip right before I do it.
Now, until last weekend, I had never formerly hosted a Couchsurfer. Scott was a frequent host in the first month or so here in Tirana. Through him, Bobby and I enjoyed the pleasure of several couchsurfers, from Julius, who went to Dirty Durres with us and in turn baked an onion cake, to Anna, who stayed for a few days before leaving the best tiramisu I’ve ever eaten.
Dameon was by far the most creative. He crafted golden origami cranes out of the wrappers from the chocolate I gave him. We used the cranes to decorate the top of Bobby’s 33rd birthday cake.
We’ve shared dinners and given advice and met interesting people, and altogether it has been a ridiculously charming situation of giving and taking, sharing in community. Ah, community. My liberal heart is bleeding all over the keyboard right now. It’s beautiful.
Making Friends via Couchsurfing
The indisputably best outcome of Couchsurfing, however, came not from a traditional couchsurfer host relationship. You can use Couchsurfing as a way to meet-up with people, and there are frequent social events. To that end, Malwine reached out to Tiara around the time of the Tirana film festival, and it was love at first sight. Nineteen years old, from Germany, an artist, also working in a school, and most importantly, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, Malwine easily joined our group.
From there it was pastry parties, nights out, “cursing in English with a Texas accent” lessons, and roadtrips to Macedonia where she saved us with German.
She drew this comic for Bobby, to illustrate that roadtrip and the weekend in Ohrid. I can’t handle how much I love it- you can see more of her art here.
Really. I don’t deserve the humans in my pack here in Albania. What luck. But rainbows and kittens notwithstanding, let’s get back to that flip side I referenced. Settle in for a ridiculous story that truly none of us saw coming.
After so many positive experiences co-hosting Scott’s couchsurfers from across the hall, and being gifted by the couchsurfing universe with Malwine, she of all that is Good and Wonderful, I thought it was finally time to get in on some of this feel good action directly. I made a profile. I set my couch to “Maybe”, so I could meet for coffee and help travelers, dipping my toe in before going whole hog there’s-a-stranger-sleeping-in-my-house-and-it’s-fine-I-gave-them-my-only-spare-key.
In what seemed like a sign from the universe, just a few days after Scott said he had received a couchsurfing request from a group of three travelers. In the interest of respect for how this story turns, I’ll refer to them as Trio. One was from my home state of Texas, which seemed like fate, so I told Scott that Bobby and I could split Trio between our two apartments since we live right across the hall from each other.
My First Experience Hosting Couchsurfers
We picked Trio up on a Sunday, and caught up over some snacks before heading out for dinner. They regaled us with stories, they were interesting and funny, and all was well. We stayed up far too late, and then it was off to the school for the teachers on Monday morning.
Monday afternoon I came home to a well-used home, something like a mom greeted with the detritus of a group of teenaged boys hanging over summer, but hey, no big deal, let’s just clean up real quick like (literally underwear…okay…) and I’ll make dinner. I cooked a huge pot of Indian curry while Bobby and Scott had an after work beer and gave Trio advice on how to rent a car from our spot across from school. They were planning a trip down south and we were giving advice since we had just made the road trip to Vlore and beyond to Saranda.
Malwine, she of all that is Good and Wonderful, came over, as well as Tiara, my oft mentioned and also fantastic co-worker. We ate, those who drink drank, and were merry. We gave Trio more information on their travel plans, and again, got to bed too late on a school night but it was worth it for the great company.
Tuesday night we picked up another couchsurfer- I’m sure it’s starting to sink in that Albania is still not that big on tourism infrastructure, even in Tirana.
We rarely ever see tourists or backpackers, but when we do? They are probably staying at Scott’s apartment.
This couchsurfer was fantastic, stayed for one night, and left without incident. That is precisely why they will not be referenced again as this story takes its inevitable turn.
Wednesday evening the plan was to meet up at Malwine’s house (yes, if you are keeping track this is a social event Sun, Mon, Tues, and Wed night- we might be teachers but we’re also trying to find fun anyplace we can get it in Tirana). It was meant to be a potluck, but at this point Trio had been here four days, and there had been little of the give and take harmony I had witnessed in previous couchsurfer/host interactions. By “little” I mean “none”, so I was happy when Trio asked if there was anything they could bring to dinner. Bobby said yes, they could bring dessert or perhaps some wine.
Well, spoiler alert- they brought neither, and showed up late to dinner on top of that. They also didn’t buy water the four nights they were here, instead opting to drink ours. And yes, as mentioned they were kind of messy. But you know what? I’m totally willing to let all of it slide because they were honestly so enjoyable to be around, and so endearingly excited about their trip.
They were young and figuring things out, so in spite of the shaky start I happily agreed to let them come back to our house after their road trip to the south. They even left their things in my apartment, because why not? We have an extra room. Let’s help them out.
Thursday morning they rolled out to rent a car and drive to Saranda. They left trash and dirty dishes in their wake on the last day- literally just a pile of both, which was kind of a bold move before leaving most of your things with your hosts.
I let it roll off after some good natured ribbing with Scott, Bobby, and Tiara about how we needed to elementary school teacher them a bit to get them into shape. Oh, little did I know how true this statement would prove, as I stood in my kitchen… but wait, we’re not there yet.
When Couchsurfing Goes Really Wrong
The work week sped by and Trio came home on Saturday night, right before our teacher group headed out for dinner. We let them into our apartments for showers and laundry, wished them a good night, and set out. We came home a few hours later, to find them out to dinner on their own.
Here is where the story moves from “oh, those kids, a bit messy and thoughtless, but aren’t they cute and fun?” to something in another universe of “WTF, is this for real?”
Scott walked into his bathroom, which had towels heaped on the floor, along with bits of shit strewn about- ribbon and rubber bands and random road treasures like scraps of paper and actual rocks, I mean, at this point, are we raising children? We all agreed that we had to strictly enforce the plan of their leaving tomorrow, and to tactfully tell them that while they were great, they need to pick up after themselves in the future.
I stood in the hallway, putting off going to what I knew would be my wreck of a bathroom. The flap of a box poked out from under a towel crumpled at the base of the washer. Scott picked it up, froze, and then turned and said (although he already knew damn well what it was)
“What the hell is THIS?!”
What WAS this, you may be be wondering? I stepped into the square of light from the bathroom, and beheld the object of his disbelief.
Dear Two Blog Readers-It was a box. of. lice. shampoo. That’s what it was. The nit comb sat on the edge of the sink, complete, almost artistically so, with a perfectly placed louse.
Sincerely,
What in the actual f$#k?
Lest you think I’m a terrible person, I should preface the following rant by saying that I am in no way mad that they got lice. I’m a primary school teacher, ya’ll- I could get lice tomorrow and it is what it is. It happens, they’re traveling, and that sucks. It’s not the situation- it’s the way they handled it.
Pray, tell me, who stays in a stranger’s house, realizes the lice problem, and simply shampoos and goes out for dinner like it’s any old Saturday night? Who, dear Reader, for the love of God tell me WHO, leaves the box of lice shampoo on the floor, mixed among other personal items, letting the box do all the talking?
I cannot imagine finding out I had lice, and deciding that the best way to deal with it would be to flippantly wash my hair and then leave the house for dinner without telling my hosts. No, no way. I would be cleaning the house, washing my clothes, washing the sheets and towels, and most importantly, I would for damn sure be waiting at the house so that as soon as my hosts arrived home I could tell them immediately.
In contrast, we came home to two silent apartments, clothes and towels spread about the house, no loads of laundry in either of the washing machines available to Trio, and nothing but a discarded box and a louse bedecked comb to tell us the story of what had happened while we were gone.
So we immediately got to work doing what Trio should have done- washing the sheets, the towels, sweeping up hair, wiping down and vacuuming couches, and generally rolling our eyes at the complete ridiculousness of the situation. Scott sent a text that simply asked “So who has lice?” Trio responded that they would come home soon and explain.
Malwine had slept in the bed the night after they left, so I immediately thought of her curly little head. I gave in to a good old fashioned rant, ending with “And so help me, if they gave Malwine, whose soul is like fine gossamer, LICE, I will lose it.” Even in the midst of parasite invasion, one must have humor, and one must think of one’s sweet German friend.
Once Trio returned, I had to play teacher lady and give a lecture in the kitchen about the socially acceptable way to go about dealing with a lice infestation when one is staying in a gracious host’s home free of charge. The mom metaphor I used at the beginning applies here, too.
Trio seemed genuinely and innocently baffled as to why the situation was inappropriate and why we were all so annoyed, which just made me sigh and remind myself that kids have to be told how to act. I didn’t yell, I wasn’t mad, but I was frustrated I had invited them back at all after the early warning signs. I had 100% reached the point where couchsurfing had flipped from a social adventure to “When are they leaving?”
I had to remind myself that in addition to lice, I had gotten onion pie, tiramisu, well crafted cranes, and most importantly, Malwine. It balanced out, but I didn’t want to do social math in the moment.
I gave my short and stern “Guys, it’s just plain weird the way you handled this, flat out. Don’t do it like this again. BTW, you all need to wash your hair and all of your clothes” speech and then went to bed. I made sure to end it with “Have safe travels”, which I sincerely meant.
I’m about to be 30. I feel like I can officially say “Kids these days.” My good friend, Gordon, summed it up nicely when he said “I don’t care how chatty your box of lice shampoo is, you should have told me.” That’s a true story.
I do have to give Trio credit, though. Nothing tops the shitshow of my first, informal experience of couchsurfing. Running screaming from a strange dude’s apartment in Osaka after he gropes you and your friend and then masturbates under the covers while pretending to sleep definitely takes the top spot of “Why is this my life right now?”.
Originally published November 19th, 2012, on Blogger.
