Day 276: All of Europe in one trip
It was a beautiful autumn day here today, so I went to the forest with my friend the French car mechanic and a few of his friends to look for mushrooms. We didn't find any but it was a nice day and we had a pick nick in the forest.
It's strange how being outdoors make you tired, and with the days getting shorter all the time here I felt like having a quiet evening, just going to yoga class, when I got a request from a Couchsurfer who wanted to stay here. "French architecture student... love the taste of adventure... stuck in Uppsala with no place to sleep". So I thought, why not? I have an empty guest room (there's an Austrian researcher in the other one).
The good thing with Couchsurfers are that they don't have too high expectations. Especially this one who had thought about sleeping outside (it will probably be frost tonight) was very happy to get inside. I made a cup of tea and he told me about his trip, where the idea was to see all European countries at once. That's a crazy idea! He had planned to travel for three months and in this time see what? 40 countries? More?
He showed me on the map what he'd seen so far. Greece, Montenegro, Bosnia, etc etc. This was nice, that was not so interesting.
Why not spend more than one or two days in a country and not do all at once? "Because I want to see other parts of the world too. Now I will have done Europe."
Ok, that's one way to look at it. I thought it sounded crazy. On the other hand he thought the same when I told him about renting out my toilet, giving away food and all that stuff.
He sounded like a fun guy from his Couchsurfing profile, and it was nice to chat, but I tend to forget the difference between my somewhat reserved Airbnb guests, and the uber-social Couchsurfers. If you want a quiet evening, perhaps you shouldn't invite someone who wants to meet new people. I did my best, but after a few hours of chatting I had to tell him I needed to sleep. I was really tired after all the fresh air. And tomorrow I need to get up and work. And the Italian Chochsurfer who was going to cook for me is coming to Uppsala. Unfortunately he has decided to only come here for the day, so I won't get any Italian food - I was so much looking forward to that - but we will have a coffee. And then in the evening the second Airbnb guest I had over a year ago is coming. She was here a couple of times a month during the whole spring and I really look forward to see her again. In other words, tomorrow is a new day in this social economy.