Down in Mexico.....Limoges

29/7 Limoges

We arrive pretty much in the middle of no where, Limoges, where our host Alex is waiting for us outside. We are her first guests (well first CS guests, they have hosted people trough hospitality club before) We are lucky because Alex and her boyfriend Eymeric (or however the bleep you write that name) came back from their trip to Peru and Bolivia. As a matter of fact they where just watching pictures of it with 2 friends. Inside we meet the friends, drink Pisco (ok Duke drinks Pisco, cause Nanouk don’t drink stuff for cleaning windows) and we watch the last couple of pictures, which by the way look amazing and very inviting to go there. Because they didn’t know what time we’d show up and of course neither did we, Alex and Eymric had made pasta for us too, which probably saved our lives in the end.

We are a bit tired from the trip, so we decide to go to bed not too late. We get escorted to our part of the enormous house. We can choose if we want to sleep in a room with a double bed or 2 single beds. We even have our own bathroom with shower, sink, toilet and.....hmmmm bidet (i have no idea how to use one of those, so i did not even think about trying)

30/7 Limoges
The next day the couple who 1 has been together for 11 years and 2 is completely Mexico obsessed leads us around Limoges. The town itself is nice but not super interesting since Duke and I are more interested in meeting people and food than going around taking pictures of buildings. We see some parks, cathedrals and lots of shops for porcelain, Limoges appears to be famous for it’s porcelain. We decide not to stuff our backpacks with the brittle junk.

Duke has got his most wanted T-shirt saying “Got Couch?” and when we get to a print shop Alex can’t resist making her own. Too bad that when we get home the font turns out to be different and there is already a hole in the fabric, but that might be a good reason to go back and get one with the right font. I’d also like to get one but I am still not sure weather i should make one with “ High maintenance” , “voulez-vous couch-surf avec moi” , or just “ Got Couch?” Maybe i will get one when i’m back.

We stop by a huge supermarket to buy food for the BBQ tonight. My way to say thank you is trough food so i decide to make a chopska salad (Croatian salad) and a desert. We have a great bbq and watch a dvd of some band called Los Fabulosos Cadillacs' last concert in Buenos Aires. Afterwards Duke and Alex, Alex speaks Mexican so i can get used to people around me speaking Spanish all the time, seranade Vaso Vasio. Everything in their house is Mexico related even the pillows on their couch have the shape of chili peppers. Speaking of which....i find out Duke’s weak spot being Habanero a damn hot Mexican sauce that makes the world a better place.

31/7 On the road again to: Toulouse

We thank A & E a 1000 times and off we go to Toulouse. Since i am writing backwards i forgot most of the road trip to Toulouse. But i recall us arriving in Toulouse. We meet Ben.

Keep updated please

28 July, Paris, pirates, priests and painters

Still at Macha´s place. Good morning is the first thing said in the afternoon, it has been like that ever since i am traveling. The usual routine, trying to get some breakfast from god knows where, should not be to hard to find some nice bread in Paris! We eat breakfast at 3 in the afternoon and start mission impossible: finding an outfit for the P-party.

The P party is part of the Paris Rendez-Vous, and the main objective of the party is to dress up as something starting with P. Apparently it is much easier to find something for a girl than for a guy, we use Duke and Macha's clothes to make him look like a : P-draggqueen, P-gay sultan, a P-whatever and some other things that don't start with P and make him look ridiculous.
Finally we are in the train, a puppet, a palm reader, a pregnant lady and a "Pere(french p's where allowed)/player/player" (a player who impregnated a girl, and plays guitar: in your face!) Which means that duke looks normal again.
At the party half of the people laugh and are stunned by my incredible creative solution, while the other half genuinely helps me up when i try to get up and makes way when i want to pass. I have to admit it looks so real it's almost scary. When we use the tip of a sausage for an outy-bellybutton it gets even worse. I am almost scared for my water to break. The party is very cool. There are Pirates, Pilgrims, Douglas is dressed as a Paper-Peter-Pan, there is a Police officer, a pizza guy, a painter, a pixy, 2 pussycats and a pink-panther. The whole jolly groups is sitting on the side of the river with lots of food and drinks. We are quite an attraction for the people passing by!

Later that evening Timmy and Steve are the highlight of the party showing up dresses as prostitutes. Together with the Policeofficer, who looks more like someone straight out of a Villagepeople video, the gang starts to look like a real wrong gay get-together. We eat and drink and Duke is playing guitar and everybody's singing until late late late. I love CouchSurfing!

Risen from the dead

26 july, Paris CaveSurfing

I am now in a park in Paris, i have no idea what park naturally, i have no idea where i am.
Today is the day of the CS work meeting, meaning all the people that are involved in the CS organization get together and talk about what they have been doing the past time to improve CS. I had no idea they where so serious and you never give it much thought that people are really working hard to make this thing work. It is working and growing in a trippy speed.
There have been collectives in different countries working on different aspects of CS like website, verification of new members, how to make it even safer and lots of important stuff that i took for granted before.
Tonight there is a benefit party to raise money and this party also offers the opportunity to get verified. (if you want to be a verified member of CouchSurfing, you need to identify yourself to one of the people in charge of Verification of CS by showing an ID-card/passport or drivers license, it costs money and in this way members will know that you let CS check your address and name and stuff)
Anyway the party was in a Gothic club in Paris, in a cave underground. Niiiiice location! i met lots of people that i had met the days before and Duke even met a Mexican girl from Puebla where he was born. The party lasted till some time in the night but because we are already not too great at getting out of bed in the morning, Duke, Antoine and I go back to Antoines place with the last train and Doulglas and Ben stay behind to check out some of the local fauna.
At home another snoring contest begins, and guess who is the great winner...

27 July, Paris, A bit of Russian hospitality
Antoine leaves at half past 7 in the morning for a paella party in Switserland?? this weekend. We can stay in his house with Ben but because Antoine lives quite far out of the center of Paris it is more expensive to buy train tickets to Paris every day than it is to park the car without paying for it and receiving an 11 euro parking fine. Around noon Dounglas and Ben show up, they have been all over the place and after waking us up with an improvised serenade on the guitar they go to sleep and so do we. Lazy bastards we are, waking up around 3. It takes us forever to get out of the house, trying not to forget half of our stuff (eventually we do forget dukes cd case) and the Father Duke, Son Douglas and Holyghost Nanouk are back on the road. We've arranged a couch at Macha's place, she is a Russian host who lives in Paris.
First we make a completely useless move by driving to the center of Paris to park the car for free at Steve's place...when we find out that at Macha's place it is also free and we won't have to drag all of our stuff around in public transportation.
By this wonderful sightseeing tour trough hectic Paris, i improve my driving skills, and we lose a lot of time. Duke is going to the birthday party of Caroline tonight and we will have to pull a 'back to the future' trick to get him there in time. So i decide to kick him out of the car halfway and Douglas and i drive to Macha's place by ourselves with our Saviour called Tom, TomTom...

We arrive at Macha's place fashionably late and without Duke (Duke and Macha know each other) but she is very sweet and helps us with our bags. She even cooks us pasta (Douglas and i are starved, and probably look like couchsurfing-zombies by now) After the dishes we go to a karaoke pub in the red light district of Paris. After a couple of ear numbing hours, the birthday group crashes the pub and Duke comes to the rescue singing "I wish" by Stevie Wonder. Of course he is surrounded by screaming Couchgirls :) We take a taxi cause the last train is long gone...

A plan is born.....and dies

For a change i made an actual plan, just because this will be my first time driving my car abroad and i don't want to get stuck somewhere without a place to sleep. I will drive for a couple of hours and then stay with a CS host (read more about CouchSurfing here). My first host will be Douglas from Leuven, but because he is in Gent for the Gentse feesten i will drive to Gent to party. A couple of days before I found out that my CS buddy Duke is going to Paris so i will have company until Gent. I will drop Duke a a gasstation for him to hike to Paris and after the Gentse feesten i will go to Leuven with Doug. From there I will stay there for a day and be on my way to Metz to stay with Juan. Next stop will be Lyon where i am surfing Guillaumes couch. From there i think i will stop somewhere in Valance or Marseille and then Mataro Spain and Barcelona

...offcourse nothing of this actually happened...


23 july; Rotterdam

Mondaymorning I am very wellprepard, i've made lists and packed everything in advance. Just a last check and i will be on my way.
car: check
bags: check
gps: check
passport: check
guitar, phone charger,tent and flip flops: ah fuck!

that is a good start of my trip 45 minutes to go and 45 minutes to come back to pick up my pretty important stuff with my parents in Nieuw-Vennep. After a little breakfast and a 20 minute warning instruction by my beloved and worried parents I am back on my way to conquer half of Europe but not before i pick up my best CS buddy DUKE

Travelling with Duke is fun and i am happy i am not alone on this trip just yet. we talk and listen to Marillion and Mexican songs and Marillion, and some more Marillion (i am really starting to like Marillion)

After hours we arrive at the last petrol station before Gent, Duke has to get off here according to plan to hich hike to Paris so he comes with me to Gent.

In Gent we meet Douglas 35 minutes late (our fault), we park at Tibeau's house, Bo is a friend of Douglas and we make a Gentsefeestenplan. The weather in Gent is worse than in Holland. But the 3 of us are having a great time. After a couple of hours and much food and music later Duke and I decide to get back to Tibeaus house while Douglas and his friends are going to a Techno party called 10 days off. We get back to Bo's place where Bo, Nicola (Bo's housemate) Koen (a fiend of Nicola) and an Italian couple (Andrea and Marta) have just finished eating (it's 23:30) We listen to music, Duke an Bo play guitar and sing and there is no sleeping going on what soever. So around 2.30 we get around to a bit of sleep....until 2,5 hours later cause Doug comes back from 10 days off. Luckily he decides to go to sleep instead of getting me to drive back to Leuven in the middle of the night.

Of course the next day the weather is fantastic. After breakfast we have to drop Duke off at the petrol station (again) for him to hich hike to Paris but instead......

we all drive to Paris.

So long plaaaahahaaaan, it's time that we began to for-get we are having a plan at allllll (to the melody of L. Cohen's so long Marian)






24 July; Paris
After a long and exhausting but great journey (Duke and I have been singing mexican songs at the top of our lungs while Doug is trying to get some sleep for the fist time in 48 hours)
we get to a bridge where the trivia part of a CS meeting is going on (by the way i think i can be called a qualified driver by now cause i have been driving around in the center of Paris and I did not kill us or other people....oh and i did not damage my own or other cars or objects)
We realize that we haven't eaten since breakfast so we run for expensive Parisian food and arrange that the 3 of us can sleep at Frediric's place. He guides his to his house, so instead of a TomTom we use the FredFred.
Fred lives in the 5th district in Paris, he will not be staying at his own house (in couchsurfers we trust) but with his girlfriend after 2 episodes of Family guy we fall asleep.

Couchsurfing rules!!!Family guy rules!!!


25 july; Paris

After a very slow morning we finally got ourselves out of Freds apartment. Got breakfast and went back into Freds apartment. Ate the breakfast and finally got ourselves out of Freds apartment. I got familiar with the Parisian subway culture and the happy trinity arrived at the........bar.
This week there is a big CS thing going on, the Paris Rendez-Vouz, where lots of CS organizers get together. We meet up with Tiina from Rotterdam and some more people that i have met before.

On the menu for today there is a tour through Paris highlighting a couple of interesting places. A group of about 40 people including a French (Amelle) and an American guide living in Paris (Caroline) tell us something about the places we stop at. The tour is quite long but it is fun to walk around Paris while talking to lots of people who are from all over the world.
Later that evening we go to some Lebanese restaurant with a group of 40 people to watch the Couchsurf documentary inseparable Steve and Cedric did on local tv.


Tonight we can't stay at Fred's because Casey and Aldo are staying there. Luckily we found Antoine a.k.a. SUPERYAMI prepared to host the 3 of us. Ben (the bends) from Australia is already staying there. Antoine lives in Chelles a little outside of Paris. We have a snoring contest but Antoine is and forever will be the undefeated winner. I have a headache!!!