Crazy Kiwi Surfer

What is wrong with people that need 1 million friends on thier facebooks/couchsurfing profiles I prefer quality over quantity any day. Sure when I first started I scraped the barrel a bit more to buff up my awesomness but now I just want to have the real referances. The genuine people.

I have this Kiwi girl who I met briefly in a bar as she was being hosted by another one of my surfers she has about 100 friends/referances. I didn't really like her because she requested me to pick her up at the airport at 1am and I told her at the bar (ok I was drunk and aggressive) that I thought it was rude to expect a host to do that. She brushed me off, fair enough then I walked off and talked to other people. She then went home and bitched about me to my host's roommate. Fine, we obviously didn't get along and I thought that was that.

Lo & Behold the NEXT FUCKING DAY she adds me a friend and leaves me a stupid neutral two line referance saying how great I am. Is she serious? I asked her to delete it and she ignored me, didn't even reply.

New years comes round and I get this message from her

"happy new years!!
where are you now?
love from saigon, vietnam
maxin"

Quite obviously a spam message to everyone on her list if she really cared she would know that I was still in Darwin and would have at least put Hi Amanda!

To which I reply

"you are the fakest person I have ever met. I don't know you, you don't like me as you made it clear to other people, why bother with this. All I asked was that you deleted your referance to me and I will delete my own so I can forget I ever met you."

Once again I get ignored. Ok so I shouldn't let this bother me but this isn't what couch-surfing is about. Its about real connections, real people and buffing up your resume with a lot of bullshit referances does not represent who you are.

So I left her a negative referance. Hopefully now she removes me from her life.

Couchsurfing Blogs

I randomly found this blog whilst surfing the net the other day. Yea I'm a Couchsurfing addict and I tend to enjoy reading other blogs. This guy just seems to complain a lot however.

Take a look at his first entry.


And this particular section
A lot of the hosts have not done much couchsurfing or none at all, so they don't undertand that when the couchsurfer gets to their place they will most likely be tired,hungry,and cold. Some inconsiderate hosts will tell you there is a restaurant downtown or two blocks from there. I consider that very thoughtless, but as I said, you don't really want to eat their food anyway, the only exception to this would be when you first get to their place, some thoughtful hosts will understand that you are hungry and tired and some will cook you a meal! I suggest you always carry some snack or grab a bite before you get to your host's place.After they cook you a meal though,stay away from the kitchen and their food.

I wrote him a comment which he has since deleted LOL. Basically I said he sounds like a douche & if you were staying in a hostel not only would you be paying but you would be expected to buy your own food so here you are getting a free bed and you are complaining that your host is so inconsiderate not to predict you meal habits?

So after deleting my comment because he obviously can't take criticism he then goes on to comment about my comment in his blog.

I had some mindless host reply to this blog upset because I describe the couchsurfing experience as less than perfect. She said if I got a free bed, I shouldn't complain. These are exactly the type of hosts you want to avoid, people who think that since you are getting a bed you are getting a good deal no matter what type of other degradation they put you through. If you are a couchsurfer without dignity who is just happy to get a free bed, this blog is not for you

I surfed for two years before I was a host I know exactly how to act and EXPECTING anything from surfer OR host other than the sleeping arrangements described in their profile is unacceptable. You should never expect to be fed, being told where the resturants are when you arrive is a nice thing to do so that you don't go hungry. Showing up and getting upset that you've had a long flight and your host doesn't feed you geezus.

Anyway I pity the person who hosts this guy and others like him.

its nice to be appreciated

Yea, this is so you can see how awesome I am. Yea, that may seem egotistical but you know what its nice to feel good about yourself. I appreciate being appreciated :)

Girls.

If you could ask one person to describe me it would be anything but female. I grew up with four sisters and I was the Tomboy. I can’t shop, I play to many video games, I curse like a mother fucker, never wear make-up and haven’t the slightest idea what colour fuchsia is.

Its no surprise that I generally end up hosting or surfing with males, I feel more comfortable around Nerdy types which more often than not are guys and I fail considerably on the womanly front. I have a couple of female friends but reality? They are just as nerdy as me.

However I ended up hosting another girl over the week. Deb from Amsterdam. We went out to ladies night and enjoyed free champagne & one male stripper. The stripper was ..bleh. Nice enough body but so obviously gay my fantasy was shattered. I crawled into a dark corner surrounding myself by screaming females hoping he wouldn’t drag me on stage as he played out several uncomfortable sexual scenarios with thus females. He seemed to favour the bent over forwards take them from behind. Sure hon, sure.

Deb turned out to be fantastic and super easy to get along with. Ok she talked a lot but that was good because I don’t talk enough sometimes, especially with girls because I never know what to say. And she never talked about make-up or shopping it was mainly travel and travel I can do.

On Saturday morning at some ridiculous hour (5am) we headed out to Kakadu for the day. I have never actually been to Kakadu in the wet season, camping is minimal, hot, sweaty & wet and the 3 hour drive makes a day trip hardly worth it. Still I had a few interested people Owen from Perth, Marlyn from Indonesia, Robert from Germany and of course Deb & I. We headed to Motor Car Falls & Boulder Creek which is the only 4wd track open in the wet and the falls apparently only flow in the wet as well. The hike to Motor Car is 7.5km return and the day was muggy & overcast. Perfect.

Heading up to Yurkmik viewpoint I was treated to an amazing view of Kakadu as it is in the wet. So beautiful and green, takes my breath away. The falls (motor car) were thundering down but the slight warning of estuarine crocodiles was enough to keep me out of the water. Maybe 10 years ago I wouldn’t have hesitated but with the increased crocodile activity I’ve seen enough pointless deaths over the last few years that I didn’t need to add myself as the statistic. I offered for the German to jump in first but he just rolled his eyes at me. Damn, what else are German’s good for except to be the crocodile bait.

We hiked back and stopped at Boulder Creek for lunch and a swim. We were the only people in sight and for a few hours enjoyed the luxury of our own private waterhole. After the swim we drove down to Nourlangie and wandered through the rocks admiring the aboriginal paintings. Heading up to another viewpoint we were treated to another sight only reserved for the wet, small waterfalls trickling down the walls, with green trees embedded in the face. I’ve always said Kakadu is not really worth visiting in the wet since the majority of sights are closed due to flooding but for a day we saw a lot of beautiful things and the dry just wouldn’t give you the same raw beauty.

Driving back I was tired and Owen kindly offered to take the wheel, we could barely see 10 metres in front of us. A few times when I was driving I accidently hit a flooded part of the road and the car almost slid out. Lucky I wasn’t going too fast. As Owen was driving we saw a road train practically stopped on the road, it was then we saw the flooding. Bear in mind it was nearly 7pm, overcast and raining like a motherfuc….

Anyway so we watched the road train push through the water and locked the wheels into 4wd and went over ourselves. Woops, the road turned out to be a lot deeper than originally thought, the water came up over the bonnet and we barely pushed through in 1st gear. Thank fuck for diesel & a snorkel. We finally made it home about 9pm and my fantastic mother had slow cooked an awesome meal of apricot chicken. I ended up sunburnt, my legs & shoulders were killing me, I was exhausted but overall it was a 10/10 day.

they can't all be awesome

Did you ever have a surfer that just rubbed you the wrong way yet never did anything wrong enough for you to give a negative reference? Happened to me a few times but just recently I had a surfer through the doors who by the end of his stay with us had my family so annoyed I actually had to tell him he had to leave. This particular surfer did nothing his entire week of staying with us except look over our shoulders at whatever we were doing, watch movies, sit on his computer and sleep.

I gave him a printout of how to get to the bus station as I was working full time and he still couldn’t find it. The bus stop is about a five minute walk from my place and you only turn one street! And he took a lot more then he gave. Sure we offered it but still there needs to be a certain time when you just say “hey these people are giving me a bed for free why don’t I do something for them” he drank all my sisters OJ and never replaced it. Ate all my mum’s candy. He also ate all my sisters cereal and when she got mad and said something to him he said “oh sorry ill replace it” and never did. On the last day he cooked us a pasta dish which probably cost no more the $10. And the next day, his last day at my house he ate his pasta and then left, leaving his dirty dish sitting on the sink. We gave him some food to eat left behind by another surfer and when he moved on he asked “can I take this food?”

I figured we were just being neurotic but received an email from a girl he met in Indonesia who thought it funny we had met the same guy. She was requesting to surf my couch.

WOWW worlds is very small sometime, u meet same person I met in Bali my home, I just see the reff from him at your profile.
Sometime he is abit complaining and compare (his hometown) and other country ( actually I dont like that ) but he is ok I met him and make trip couple time in Bali before I left to my trip in Aust.
WOW .....

So nice to know it wasn’t just us he rubbed slightly wrong. Still not enough to give a negative reference anyway. I mean would you? I wouldn’t host him again, to be honest he was a little boring and thought quite highly of himself. But im sure he would get along fine with other people. And I can only blame myself for offering him a lot.

Who am I Who are you?

Different Types of CS Hosts - stolen from http://cruisesurfing.blogspot.com

1. The Ambassador
The Ambassador is not necessarily an official "CouchSurfing Ambassador", but they sometimes are. They will try to spend as much time with you as possible and act as your personal tour guide. You're not just staying over for free, you're got a new (temporary) best friend. Ambassadors will introduce you to other CouchSurfers and they know all the best budget places in town. Ambassadors are happiest when conversations revolve around CouchSurfing.

2. The Martyr
The Martyr seems to be inconvenienced with having you over, but still agrees to host you. They rather you do your own thing, remind you that you have to be out of the house first thing in the morning and remind you not to touch any of their food. Martyrs see hosting as sacrifice.

3. The Servant
The Servant is a big believer in hospitality and that "guest is king". They will sleep on the couch while you get the bed. You will be pampered to the point that you will feel guilty for such amazing hospitality. Servants are generous to a fault.

4. The Commune Chief
The Commune Chief invariably turns their apartment into a something resembling an intentional community. It's irrelevant how many couches there are in the house. What's relevant is how many sleeping bags can you fit on the floor. These communes usually take on a life of their own and starts to self-organize. Commune Chiefs think it's odd that anyone would want to only host one CouchSurfer at a time.

5. The Charmer
The Charmer is sweet and charming. They will wine you and dine you. And they will hang out with you and connect with you. You're just not sure if you're couchsurfing or on a date.

6. The Surrogate Family
The Surrogate Family will pick you up, fuss over you and feed you. You won't just be a couchsurfer, you'll be adopted into the family.

7. The Entrepreneur
The Entrepreneur is always looking for opportunities for "additional revenue streams". They will not be shy to suggest "donations" for utilities or ask you to buy them gifts, drinks or dinner as payment for hosting. Entrepreneurs will drive you around if you agree to pay for the service.

8. The Connector
The Connector seems to know everyone in town and will introduce you to many of them. You will end up having random adventures with lots of their friends, many of which may only be able to communicate with you with hand signals and lots of vodka. Connectors are have a natural
ability to make their guests feel like a local.

Different Types of Surfers

1. The Hippy
The hippy sees CouchSurfing as a natural extension of their everyday philosophy. They may hitch-hike and dumpster dive as well. They may not actually have much of plan, because the Universe is showing them the way. The hippy goes with the flow and may be vague with when they are arriving or leaving. But you will get lots of hugs.

2. The Flashpacker
The flashpacker doesn't need to couchsurf to save money, they do it because it's exciting. They are typically armed with some fancy gadgets and never get lost because they use google maps on their smartphones.

3. The Digital Nomad
The digital nomad is an amalgamation of the Hippy and Flashpacker, except that they are long-term travelers. They work from their laptop so they are location independent. They tend to be slow travelers and will typically try to couchsurf for a longer periods, to get to know places and people better.

4. The Weekend Warrior
These are people who have regular jobs during the week but travel and couchsurf on weekends. They'll turn up Friday evening and stay til Sunday night, when they'd return home. More common in Europe than North America, where you can get really cheap flights.

5. The Couchpotato
This couchpotato is a bit of an anomaly. Every so often you'll get a CouchSurfer who'll come over and want to do nothing. You'll have to make plans for them and show them around or they'll just sit on your couch and surf the net/tv all day.

6. The Rockstars
These people are awesome! They will drag their hosts out, party it hard and take you on random adventures for the duration of their stay. You will feel like a traveling circus just made a pit-stop at your house and rocked your world.

7. The Customer
You'll feel like you're running a hostel. The Customer requests a couch because they are in town for a job interview/conference/house-hunting and they will hardly interact with you or anyone else. They see couchsurfing as a way to get a free place to sleep and that's the end of it. The Customer is most likely to get "annoyed" if the facilities are not up to their standards.

8. The Drama Queen
I call people who use "Emergency couch groups" regularly, drama queens. They've "hacked" the CouchSurfing system by just posting to these groups that they are desperate for a couch. These people are a pandora's box and you never know what sort of dramas (or traveling companions) they'll bring along to your house.

9. The Horde
This is more like an invasion, rather than a couchsurf. These people travel in packs and it can be a novel experience if the host is an extrovert. Or it could lead the host to tears if she's an introvert!

Love me some newbie surfers

Once upon a time, hard to believe I know. I was a newbie. A kind couple Cynthia & Randy from Dawson Creek BC were awesome enough to take me & my ex in under their wing without any references! I’d pre-pared little gifts for my hosts with chocolates and things from Australia. They were probably two of the most generous people I have ever met, well except when I moved on to the next host haha.

Anyway you need to start somewhere and like I said I love newbies, I like to think I’m pretty experienced and will give advice. Plus my house seems perfect for first timers. Firstly we don’t do everything for my surfers. Its my opinion that a surfer should be self-sufficient. And not only that the surfer should help out the host. The host is giving you a FREE place to sleep, something as simple as cleaning up the dishes is great but I my all time favourite is the ones who cook. You are saving $25 a night for accommodation , use that money to cook a nice meal for your host! Or if you can’t cook buy a 6-pack or something. Everyone in my house is super friendly and if your new and not sure about integrating into someone’s life then its good to be made welcome. I know some hosts can make a person feel very awkward. Its always best if your new to surf with a host with lots of experience.

Every newbie I’ve taken in has often surpassed some of my most experienced surfers. Hell I had one surfer and she turned on the air-conditioner whilst I was away and left it on all day with the windows open! And didn’t even ask me, air-con is expensive!! And she had a lot of surfing experience.

Thomas , Flavia, Greg, Jack, Jeremy, Mark & Mel, Holly & Wayne, Jessica, Silke – some of my newbies who went above and beyond.

If a newbie fills out the profile, puts up some pictures and gives me a good message about why I should host them then they deserve a chance because honestly.. we were all there once.

Wet vs Dry

Taking a ride on the best couch in Darwin (yes I’m talking about mine) can be a completely different experience depending what time of the year you come. I’ve noticed the difference in the length of time people stay as well. In The dry it got out of control and I had massive overload of surfers because they never wanted to leave. And why would you, beautiful weather while the rest of Australia was miserable, lots of work, big nightlife, beach swimming, night markets. In the wet you have heat, heat, rain, heat.

Snake catching is a speciality of mine that right now is only available in the dry. It could possibly change when I learn the migration of the sneaky bastards. I love to see the little European faces light up when they experience holding their first “wild” snake. And for the animal activists out there, no harm is done the snakes are released after capture. I even had a couple of surfers catch their own with gentle coaxing. Greg from France was the first protégé and its great to watch people moving out of their comfort zones and experiencing true Australia.

Another great dry season event is the camping. & the 4WD camping is the best. In the rainy season the roads to the best locations close up most of Kakadu is only available for a few precious months a year. In the dry the nights are cool and you don’t have to worry about being rained on. Camping is one of the reasons I love Darwin and really getting down those 4WD tracks to places untouched by tourism makes it all worth it.

So lets not forget Mindil Beach Sunset Markets. A premium attraction in the northern Territory and a great place to eat, drink and watch a beautiful Sunset. Once again, does not function in the wet season – rain is imminent.

In the Wet so far my hosting has been pretty relaxed. It usually involves sitting around a table drinking beer and sharing good food. Occasionally we hit the town especially as there seems to be a lot more electronic events on which I love. There is always a BBQ going at my house, another favourite pastime of mine. One of the best things about the wet is that if you do get out to one of our national parks the waterfalls are pouring down, there is so many less tourists. Litchfield is amazing and can still mostly be done by 2WD.

And the storms. Watching the lightning crackle across the sky, the wind blowing the palm trees around its one of the most beautiful things in the world. Darwin in the wet is so wild, full of life & not for the weak.

getting hosted?

Back when I joined Couchsurfing there was less then a million people now its about 5 million and growing rapidly. So since its becoming so popular you know there are lot of people joining for the wrong reasons.

- There are people in it for the free couch, usually pretty easy to spot they fail at updating their profiles, don't usually bother with pictures and write really sloppy request messages. They very rarely use the CS request. And they never read your profile they probably spam every host in the city.

- Guys (or girls) looking for love. I am so wary of guys who say "female only" on their surfer preferance. Or vice versa (though a lot less common I've noticed). How can I stress COUCHSURFING IS NOT A DATING WEBSITE. And living in Darwin where there are so many guys compared to females I end up with a lot of the overflow blokes who have a hard time finding a couch because they lack the nessacary appendage.

-Scammers. Gee there is tons of those out there nowadays. Their profile basically empty with a fake picture saying they are from england and then their last login is Nigeria and their english is horrible!

-Penfriends! People who message you online to chat and be friends and they live about 10,00000 miles away. Generally from India and often have never surfer or hosted before just see the website as a way of stalking people. This is definitely not what couch-surfing is about. Myself personally I only add people I know.

I have not had a bad experiance like many of the other hosts I know. I have had a few neutral experiances but nothing bad. One girl who just sat and watched TV for the whole two days and never engaged in conversation and two girls who seemed to be more interested in the comfort and people waiting on them then my kind of couch. Both seemed to be in surfing for the wrong reasons however their profiles and messages to me didn't betray that. Still they never stole or wasted anything of mine so it definitely wasn't negative.

So how do I pick people?

Everyone always asks me and I don't really have a set way to pick people but there is a few things that will make me pick you over someone else.

-pictures. At least one where I can see your face clearly. A lot of the time I have picked people because they had an awesome artsy photo as their profile picture. Lots of interesting travel shots (with you in them) are a drawing point as well.
-personalised message. Saying my name is a starting point some people don't even do that! But reading my profile a little and commenting on some things you would be interested in is great. Mentioning snakes, awesome, cooking pretty much gets you instantly :) One couple started off with "name loves a good clean!" sure they could have been lying but commenting about cleaning is right at the bottom of my profile and means they must have read most of it!
-timing. Sometimes I have just picked people because they message me at the right time. Very rarely I have room for last minute requests especially since I have a whole family to check with. But one guy messaged me the day before a camping trip and I had one seat left so I accepted him. He turned out to be awesome and stayed with me for two weeks!
-knowing my other surfers. If one of my other surfers you met across the world and they reccomended you contact me, let me know. I have taken many "friends of friends" and always been happy. I had a french couple stay with me who were lovely and they saw me going through my surfers and I was about to deny one guy and they looked at him and realised he was someone they knew from Broome. They informed me he was really nice and that I should host him. So I didnt have the room but said yes and he ended up becoming like my brother and moving in staying for three months!
-having hosted before. No explanation nessacary.
-come to one of the CS meetings/parties I host. I had to decline this one german guy and his friends as I had no room but met him again at a party a whole lot of surfers went to. Discovered he was camping behind macdonalds and as I had the room again later offered him to come back. He and his friends returned and we had an awesome 2 months together!
-FILL OUT YOUR PROFILE Im looking for people passionate about sharing who they are with me. If you have two lines sying "i like walks on the beach" that tells me nothing and I'm less inclined to want to meet you. I don't want to host boring people I want to host passionate, different people from all over the world.
-Be from some obscure country. I've had so many french and germans (all great though) that I really want some variety. Hungary, turkey seriously message me if your from somewhere I've never hosted!!

That being said you could be all of the above and I just dont have the room. I get so many requests a day I can't host you all although I wish I could :)

Overpartied

I had a new surfer arrive Saturday morning so I picked him up from the airport around 6:15am. His name is Simon from the UK. He had arrived at 3am but I don't usually pick people up at that time as I do like my sleep.

Anyway it was my work christmas party and he decided to come and be my date since it was free bar tab and a nice boat cruise around the harbour.


Simon enjoying a beer as we cruise away from the harbour

The sunset was spectacular



So after the cruise we had a 21st to get to and a Housewarming. by now I had been drinking since 3pm so was quite wasted. My mum picked us up and took us to the housewarming which was convieniantly behind my house so all I had to do was take the ladder over. The atmosphere was great and full of good people and then I got to drunk and passed out and never made it to the 21st....

Sunday morning mum picked up Nick my belgium surfer from the airport. He had been up for two days so passed out on the balcony. I woke him up about 10am as we were picking up baby freshwater crocodiles for my dad to see if he wanted to come. He decided to join us and the little baby crocs were so cute :) My dad utilized the boys to help move a massive fishtank.

I ended up with about a million mosquito bites from somewhere..

That was my weekend :)

Couchsurfing is not a dating site

Yea but I’m single, you’re single. We are like-minded people and become instant friends. Couchsurfers are generally such open giving people you can’t help but fall a little bit in love with each surfer who passes by. Despite this philosophy I did stand by my untarnished record of never getting involved with my hosts or surfers. I never intend to become romantically interested but more often than not I found myself wishing something would happen and then right at the last second changing my mind because I knew they would leave me or I would leave them and losing a friend is hard enough.

Random piece of information here but whoever believes that there is only one person out there for you has never been a couchsurfer.

Now I should admit I did break my record one weekend and it was not premeditated it just happened. First we were out having a few drinks, dancing, enjoying life next thing you know I’m making out in the back of my sisters car! Two days later he was gone and I was back to my old self. I’m not exactly sure what made this guy different from the rest, I was taking a long time to get over my ex boyfriend and had just enough drinks in me to lower my inhibitions but not passing out somewhere which seems to be a bit of a common occurrence with me. Not a one night stand kind of girl this fling had just enough emotion it was like hooking up with an old friend. I still talk to him and feel no animosity towards him or myself like a couple of my other flings have caused. I am happy, it stopped me thinking about my ex as much and made me realise I am still open to feeling something for another person. I hope we will remain friends forever because he really was someone special to me. Sure you wonder sometimes what would happen if you were both in the same country but for now I am just happy to have met and shared that time with him.
Speaking of hooking up with surfers my little sister did the same thing but theirs was a lot more serious. I’m pretty sure they are planning to go away to another country and work & live together he even flew back to Darwin to see her before he went home to Germany. Now if I do hook up with someone from another country and fall madly in love (although with my track record that’s unlikely) I need to pick a country where I will appreciate dual-citizenship. Europe? Africa? China?

On a different note, I took three of my surfers out to a party at my friends place. By the time they arrived I was 12 coopers, 3 cocktails and a shot of absinthe in. Its pretty blurry but Dan, my Kiwi surfer at some point rescued me from drowning in the swimming pool. I still stand by the fact I was fine and wouldn’t have drowned ;) Still, I appreciate it. The rescue left me a couple of bruises on my ribs heh. They seemed to enjoy themselves even though I was passed out by 9pm. I did wake back up at 1am and party till 4 

Might need to scrub myself clean

So I left my first "neutral" couchsurfing referance and it does feel a little unclean. I don't like to leave bad referances but sometimes it has to be done. A girl asked to stay with me saying she was arriving on the 9th. She never called or showed up and then contacted me on the 11th to say she had stayed with Richard instead. She then told me she had no internet access to let me know.

This bugs me, people think I am stupid or something because I'm pretty much the master at working people and things out - I think in my past life I was Sherlock Holmes (we will ignore the fact he is fictional like we ignore the fact Elvis is still alive!)

Anyway she obviously knew she was staying with Richard while she had internet access as she would have had to get his details and she could have let me know then. I also noticed she stayed with Richard two days before contacting me I know Richard offers internet access to his guests. I just found it disrespectful and I had turned down several surfers to host her. I think the neutral referance will let her know its not on. I find there is a huge problem with surfers nowadays not realising that hosts give up thier homes & time for you and you should respect that. I don't think she is a bad person and I hope that she will learn from this and not do it again.

In other news after scraping around for the last four months borrowing cars I am finally the owner of a 2009 Mazda 3 Neo Sport. Its got just under 9,000km and basically awesome condition. It will be so weird to be mobile again and such a sense of freedom. I will really be able to look after my surfers! So I am just waiting on the loan to be finalized and then I can get the keys in my hot little hands.

Quebec, cant complain

Quebec, can’t complain. I probably should have been kicked out of Canada for worst driver of the year today and two french guys did fall at my feet this evening, literally. Ok explain?

So last night was fun Lisa and I went to some bar which had Ottawa anihilating Montreal in Hockey. Now that’s a fun hockey match to watch you can really see the hatred between the two teams, I think there was a fight every two seconds! We were drinking some Quebec beer which was on special for $3. After chilling at the pub for a little while Lisa took me to the best poutine in Montreal. This place has 25 different types of poutine. I chose pepper sauce with onions, minced meat, mushrooms and of course the staple poutine ingrediants of mozzerlla cheese curds, gravy and fries. Talk about a heart attack waiting to happen, I couldn’t finish mine it was huge but so delicious I just wanted to savour everything!

We were home and in bed before midnight and then up again at 630am, today. I wanted to get on the road early and Lisa had to work. I was happy to see I had another parking ticket J’adore Montreal <3 Well I decided to place it at my feet and thats where that will stay. Hehehehe.

So I made it to Old Quebec City about 1030am and parked on a random street. Walked around for two hours just taking in the sites, taking thousands of photos. I dont know what to write about it except Old QC shits all over Old Montreal, although the Basilica in Old Montreal was still amazing. I had lunch at a little cafe with a Moka and Eclair. Well, when in france?

Leaving however I accidently nudged the car in front of me, bad turning circle and then drove off without looking to see if I did any damage. I was going really slowly though pretty sure the car was alright. I had issues getting out of Old QC my GPS kept wanting me to turn into the river and I did want to cross the river ...just preferably over a bridge and not swimming.. So confused and attempting to get out of the stupid city myself I went the wrong way down a one way street then even worse cut a taxi off on a roundabout! Oh man.. I was so frustrated with my horrible driving all that pride I had been feeling about my recant awesome freeway skillz gone in one brief moment.

So I drove to Rimouski which is very east quebec, made it there about 4pm. People further quebec do not really speak english. I had a couchsurfer lined up Benoit. He had a soccor game on till seven with his university and I went along for the ride and to watch men run around kicking things. Two of the soccor players just about took me out scrambling for the ball and falling down in a heap at my feet – le sigh. After the game we went to a store and looked at the many types of quebec beer available bought a few then went back to his place and chilled out trying to watch a movie and drink. We talked a lot though we had a lot in common and I felt very easy communicating with him his english was fantastic. We didnt watch the movie and ended up having a trance dj in the background instead, still I was up at 630 so very tired and about to crash! He is taking me to a nice waterfall hike tomorrow then I will be driving on to fredericton.

My flu is not completely over, its fucked. I have a horrible cough hanging on...argh..this is why I hate being sick lasts for ages!

Surfing the couches

So as I was planning a bit of my road trip to Alaska today I came across the dilemma of accomodation. Winter is quiet for North, North America and what accomodation is available is pretty expensive. I was looking at over $100CA a night just to sleep!

But a friend introduced me to Couch Surfing and there are quite a few people along the way which have couches available. Its a great idea and I am looking forward to hosting people in the future. Not only shall I save myself some money but I will hopefully get to meet some great people!

Sign up, its worth your time!