My first Couchsurfing experience

Last January I needed to go back to Denmark from Milan but instead of flying into Billund I decided to fly into Hamburg Germany for three reasons: the first is that the flight was less than ten euros, the second is that I could visit a new city even if just for a few hours, and third is that my friend wanted to come and see me from Turkey. Because of the latter, I had to book a second time the train and stay at least overnight so that I could spend some time with my friend who I did not see for almost a year and she told me that to save money we could use Couchsurfing.

Under a roof, for free.

Now, she is a girl and she was going to stay longer than one night, so she also had to stay at a stranger's house all by herself. I did not like the idea at all. She kept sending messages to everyone with good reviews, but hardly any one answered. The only one who did was a young guy who came to Milan for a really short internship when he was in high school so we decided to give it a try and test this app.

I arrive after my friend who already met the guy and left her stuff in his house and she told me he was very nice and so is his apartment.

I go there with her to leave my stuff before going to have dinner and I find his apartment also very nice, at least for one person. He plays piano and upstairs there are his bedroom and his piano. In the lower floor, there is the living room where my friend and I would stay, the kitchen, and the bathroom. I was curious to meet this guy, I mean I saw his picture and my friend told me about him but I was in his house and I was not comfortable until I saw him in person. He comes back from work and texts my friend asking if we wanted to have dinner together but we were already having a hamburger so we ended up meeting up after.

And then we met.

I finally see him and I think he is a very nice guy. We go out for a walk and we have a beer in one of the places he normally goes to, then he shows us all the places he likes and the restaurants where you can get good brunch and stuff like that. After that, we go back and try to sleep. I say try because I can not feel relaxed in someone else's house. My friend is sleeping like if she is in her own bed, I am desperately wishing for the sun to rise (I should say for morning to come because the sun in Germany during winter does not exist). Morning finally comes and the guy already left for work. My friend and I wake up and have breakfast. He told us we could have some coffee but we had what my friend bought because we did not want to do too much.

I mean, he took the time to show us around even though he did not have to. Then he told us we could use all the things he had in his kitchen for our breakfast and he offered us a beer. It was a very nice and positive experience. He then left us a nice review on Couchsurfing and so did we.

How to choose the right host.

• Look at the reviews;
• See how many positive reviews the person has;
• See if there are any which are not so why and find out what is wrong;
• Find pictures of the person and perhaps the place where you will be hosted;
• If it is your first time couchsurfing, try to contact only verified accounts.

- Cristian

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