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...