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A pleasant introduction...
Jul. 27th, 2011 08:21 pmThe CouchSurfing vision—envisioning a world where everyone can explore and create meaningful connections with the people and places they encounter—is a bit much for me to grok at one go. On a practical level, there are folks who have couches available, and there are others who are looking for couches to crash on. To me, that's the essence of couchsurfing.
Do people still use the term "crash" in this sense? I've lost touch.
My first experience with this kind of thing took place during one of the libertarian "Festivals of Life," held at Hunter College in Manhattan. It was an eye-opening experience for me—something of a Randian-but-not-quite-student-of-Onjectivism at the time—to break bread and share floor space with right libertarians, left libertarians, anarchocapitalists, and I forget who else after the day's program was complete. Thinking back, the scope of the discussions—and their civility—was rather extensive.
In 1972, if memory serves, one of our fellow residents at our university's International College came up with a spur-of-the-moment idea of driving up to Quebec City in Canada for the annual Mardi Gras celebration. Now, most people, when they think of Mardi Gras, turn their thoughts to New Orleans or much further south, to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. But Quebec City has its own celebration, even if the mercury is nothing more than a frozen ball.
Our group ended up filling a two-car caravan—which included my old '72 Dart—and we swooped north, past Albany, and crossed the border into Canada near Montreal. It was my second time out of the country, but the first time I actually felt as if I had left the United States behind. (My first trip was a weekend away from Camp Pendleton, California, spent in Tijuana, Mexico, which was a little like visiting a huge outdoor amusement park set up for the exclusive entertainment of young men in excellent physical condition with way more money than good sense. The less said about which the better.)
Everything went well until our little collective—which was long on enthusiasm but short on planning and cash—was faced with having to find a place to stay for the night. Pretty much every room in the city had been taken, and those that remained available were outrageously expensive. Then one of our group ran into a couple that, as it turned out, was gay, which didn't stop them from letting us spend a couple of nights camped on the floor of their tiny studio apartment.
And so passed my first international couchsurfing experience.
* * * For some reason—and I hope it's not early senility—I confidently took Galina to IAH this morning for her flight to New York. Sadly, JetBlue flies from Houston's other major airport (Hobby), and as our timing was off, we bagged a seat on a later flight for a nominal fee and set off for home with me mumbling under my breath.
Once home, I took care of some incoming short items and an item due by 3 pm, work on which now had to be accelerated owing to Galina's new 3 pm flight time. Fortunately, everything fell into place and I even managed to land a 40,000 word job due about three weeks from now. The plate has some weight on it.
The revised departure time put Galina in JFK a couple of hours after her sister arrived from Moscow, but I've been in touch, and everyone has found everyone else and is en route in a limo to the house near Locust Valley.
In the end, the day pretty much went the way it was supposed to. It just took place in a different order.
Cheers...
Do people still use the term "crash" in this sense? I've lost touch.
My first experience with this kind of thing took place during one of the libertarian "Festivals of Life," held at Hunter College in Manhattan. It was an eye-opening experience for me—something of a Randian-but-not-quite-student-of-Onjectivism at the time—to break bread and share floor space with right libertarians, left libertarians, anarchocapitalists, and I forget who else after the day's program was complete. Thinking back, the scope of the discussions—and their civility—was rather extensive.
In 1972, if memory serves, one of our fellow residents at our university's International College came up with a spur-of-the-moment idea of driving up to Quebec City in Canada for the annual Mardi Gras celebration. Now, most people, when they think of Mardi Gras, turn their thoughts to New Orleans or much further south, to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. But Quebec City has its own celebration, even if the mercury is nothing more than a frozen ball.
Our group ended up filling a two-car caravan—which included my old '72 Dart—and we swooped north, past Albany, and crossed the border into Canada near Montreal. It was my second time out of the country, but the first time I actually felt as if I had left the United States behind. (My first trip was a weekend away from Camp Pendleton, California, spent in Tijuana, Mexico, which was a little like visiting a huge outdoor amusement park set up for the exclusive entertainment of young men in excellent physical condition with way more money than good sense. The less said about which the better.)
Everything went well until our little collective—which was long on enthusiasm but short on planning and cash—was faced with having to find a place to stay for the night. Pretty much every room in the city had been taken, and those that remained available were outrageously expensive. Then one of our group ran into a couple that, as it turned out, was gay, which didn't stop them from letting us spend a couple of nights camped on the floor of their tiny studio apartment.
And so passed my first international couchsurfing experience.
Once home, I took care of some incoming short items and an item due by 3 pm, work on which now had to be accelerated owing to Galina's new 3 pm flight time. Fortunately, everything fell into place and I even managed to land a 40,000 word job due about three weeks from now. The plate has some weight on it.
The revised departure time put Galina in JFK a couple of hours after her sister arrived from Moscow, but I've been in touch, and everyone has found everyone else and is en route in a limo to the house near Locust Valley.
In the end, the day pretty much went the way it was supposed to. It just took place in a different order.
Cheers...
