Sunday, October 23, 2011

I love Hosting but I am so sick of cleaning up after people.

There needs to be a change in my hosting techniques, im to easy going and I just let things flow. This is causing tension for me and my family. I looked at the bathroom and its disgusting, there has been four extra people all week in the house staying for free and using the facilities. That's about 10 showers a day.

I don't mind longer surfers but I really wish people would step up. Each day this week there are glasses left on the table which I sadly washed them all up. One guy who was renting cheaply off us for the last few months was supposed to clean the kitchen once a week and he scrubbed the stove once and that was it. Another guy had the task of toilet(seeing as most his time was spent on it) and he decided to wash the floor with toilet paper. What a waste of money and paper.

It really makes me miss those amazing surfers, The morgans from france, Morgane who cleaned the bathroom almost every day. Philipp who fixed everything and helped & payed all the time. Ilona from Germany who mopped & swept the house. Many more but those are the stand-outs.

Instead I have an guy who thinks the rules doesn't apply to him and when he knew I was waiting for the washing machine took the load out and put his in mere minutes before I went down. When I got mad he said "I have to work tomorrow" so do I, it was as simple as asking me. He used the shower when the rules clearly state that the household needs the shower weekday mornings. Yet this morning when I went to use it he was in there.

I have three people here for the last week which are lovely people, really nice. But the mess is driving me crazy. They leave their glasses around, they don't turn off fans & lights, they ate all my Jello shots and left the pan sitting on top of the fridge instead of washing it. Simple little things that after a while just drive me nuts. I wish I didn't have to ask.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

exploring the world without leaving Darwin.

I thought hosting was supposed to get a little quieter this time of the year but it seems I have more surfers then ever!

A canadian/american couple here right now till the 26th.
A young female vegan from Canada Tuesday morning.
German girl on the 26th
A zombie enthusiast guy from Spain on the 26th
A belgium girl who can't cook but is still awesome on the 27th
An IT nerd guy from Indonesia on the 29th
American couple who have been teaching in Korea end of November.
Two english boys bicycling around the world to raise money for cancer & MS end of November

Everytime I read a new profile and have the opportunity to meet these amazing, interesting people from the comfort of my own balcony it really inspires me. I am excited to learn an awesome vegan dish from the Canadian girl and talk about meditating with the Dalai Lama with Spainiard. Something that is up there on my bucket list.

Perhaps indonesia and I can talk general geekery whilst I probe him about the 17 day trek to Nepal. Discuss working in Korea with the americans and be inspired by the two english boys who rode their bikes through Russia & Iran - for charity.

Once again, cheers couchsurfing.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Beating my fears

I have been lucky I guess with the most placid of stimson pythons who never even looked at me funny and a couple of BHPs(black headed pythons) who barely move. I just picked up a second hand NT Carpet from someone leaving town who didn't really want the snake in the first place. They were to scared to have him and I assume a lot of attempts at handling him had gotten him frightened & defensive over the time. After leaving him for a week to settle into my house and two days after feeding him, I decided this baby was the best way to get over my natural flinch reaction to being bitten. I put my hand into his cage and instantly retreated after he rared up and struck out missing me of course because my hand was already in the fridge grabbing a beer to soothe my nerves.

After the beer my confidence was a little higher and once again I reached in, this time when he struck I closed my eyes like I would on a rollercoaster where you know your going to be ok but reality is you're still terrified and I felt his little teeth scrape innocently against my skin. Opening them again I slowly moved my hand trying not to frighten him he slid over it and then as I moved to pick him up he strikes again. Two drops of red appeared on my index finger.

I take him from the cage he is a little nuts right now and strikes several more times in the movement my left hand is now spotted with red so with slow deliberate movements place him in my lap and calmly place my right palm over him and sit quietly.

It actually doesn't take long for him to calm down but when I raise my right hand he goes flying trying to escape and he is quick for a 20cm pencil thin thing so I try to pull him back and he rears up again and latches onto my stomach. This time I guess he isn't letting go. Well for 30 seconds anyway.

After a few minutes I returned him to his cage and left him alone.

Yesterday I handled him again and after some defensive cage striking and a few more bites he actually is a lot calmer being handled. He ran quite successfully along my arms and hands and didn't mind being recaught when I needed to put him away. I have high hopes for him. Its my first carpet and Im surprised at how fast he moves compared to my other snakes.




Its funny how I have now been bitten by him about 20 times with only half of that barely drawing blood yet that initial fear reaching into his cage is still present. This activity is as much for him as it is for me. I love especially how a 20cm baby carpet terrifies me more then both my metre long BHPs haha.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Regressing in my old age.

It was my 30th a few weeks ago and I ended up with three German couchsurfers from my friend. They were super nice boys and I did ply them with loads of alcohol. As I lay passed out in my bed one of them, a 19 year old German guy decided he wanted to cuddle with me. "Can I share the bed with you" he whispered. And I mumbled a very drunked sure whatever. Closing my eyes to fall back in the beautiful slumber I was in. Here I was turning the big 3-0 and I had a 19 year old European wanting to share my bed. I *guess* I should have been happy about that! But as I get older consequences are more prevalent maybe the young Amanda in her 20s would have jumped at the chance but the newly responsible Amanda would rather just ignore her bed partner and sleep through the drunkiness. Although if I told you how long I had been celibate... just be aware I am not joining a nunnery *just* yet.

I also have a super strict don't get involved with couch surfers policy. Though as I have mentioned before it can get quite hard. Luckily for me this one was quite easy to avoid as a/ I was really to drunk and had no interest in him anyway. & b/ he decided throwing up all over my bed was awesome.

No it sucked, I ended up on the floor outside and he got a comfortable (though slightly wet & smelly) sleep on my bed.

Would you in this case give him a negative referance? I think its perfectly justified, if not only for the drunken advances I've seen people give negatives for less. Thing is, I've been that 19 year old kid throwing up everywhere having to be dragged home. Shit in 2010 I smoked to much weed after drinking all day and night, passed out in a bar toilet and had a couchsurfer drag me to my house. I honestly don't consider him a bad person and I hope the experience he learns from and perhaps slows down on the drinking. But hey he is 19 and I think if you host the younger generation often you need to be prepared to deal with the more stupid decisions. All we can do is guide them, if he had shown no remorse in the morning then I would have been inclined to mention it on his profile but he was over apologetic and even sent me emails later on apologising again. So yea, I think he learnt his lesson anyway.

So hopefully next time I get a good looking european in my bed I'm a little less drunk & he has a few more years under his belt!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

You know your awesome when:

One of my latest couch requests came from a German couple who look like models.

The request sucked and I declined but when looking at their profile noticed they copied my Philosphy word for word.


ok so I changed the snowboarding part about a month ago but its still my profile. Weird.