I guess this is a bit of a plug...

so couchsurfing.

For anyone who's completely unfamiliar with Couchsurfing, let me explain it a little bit. CS is a non profit orginaztion originating from (i believe) New Zealand. The officially stated mission of CS is that:

"CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding."

The way CS goes about this is by creating a community of couchsurfers. Now, i'm sure some of you are wondering what exactly couchsurfing is. ("God Becky, that's nice and all, but WTF are you talking about") To surf a couch, or to couchsurf is the concept of staying in someone's home. So, for example. If I were to travel to...London, instead of staying in a hostel or hotel, I could find someone on the couchsurfing site, and couchsurf at their place. But, the point of CS is not offering people a free place to crash, it's giving people a chance to meet each other. So, during this hypothetical trip to London, while staying with Sally and John Deere, I might have dinner with them one night, we might go out for drinks at their favorite pub another after they show me around the city some, and maybe I could cook for them the last night I was there. During the whole visit, we would get the opportunity to hang out, to connect, and to become friends. Thus, when I leave London, I leave with new friends, and seeing the local, real London!

So, that was a hypothetical example. Now here's what i've experienced with it so far.

I joined because Kate wouldn't stop talking about it, and I hoped that if I joined, we could occasionally talk about other things too ;). Within a couple minutes of joining, I recieved a personal email welcoming me to CS, and inviting me to actively participate. I decided to join a couple groups related to Paris, and I sent out a message, saying that I was an American here in Paris, and wanting to meet Parisians. The response I got back has been incredible, within a day, I'd had about 10 emails from people, someone texted my phone, and I had several responses on the message thread. Out of all of this, I think i'm going to go see a movie with a CS friend this weekend, and I've organized a french/english exchange, which is starting tomorrow. In theory, there will be a group of us, some french native speakers, some english native speakers, all getting together for the opportunity to speak our secondary language. I'll let you know how it goes!

My other first experience with CS happened while I was in Reims this past weekend. I'd messaged a guy named Mathias who lived in Reims, asking if he'd be interesting in getting together for a drink and talking for a bit. It turned out that he could, and he invited his two friends along too, so it was Marielle, Mathias, Thomas, Remi, and I. After meeting up (While Marielle and I were waiting, I spent most of the time convincing Marielle that nothing bad would come of it) we all headed to a brasserie to get something to drink. After 2+ hours of talking (all in french) Remi invited us to his house for dinner, and continued conversation. Marielle and I made it back to our hostel at the last minute possible, and we had a great night. The conversation was varied, we talked about music, about schools, movies, art, Paris, politics (French and US), travelling, ethnicity, Mcdonalds...it was a great night.

I loved the opportunity to get to talk to some French people, to know that they would be understanding and sympathic of my mistakes with French, and to not have to worry about one of them thinking anything more than friendship was expected.