couch surfing

So Rémy & I have had quite a few surfers crash on our couch during our time together here in Clermont, from friends to acquaintances to complete strangers and it has always gone well. We both love receiving guests, meeting new people and taking people on local adventures. It's a great experience for both parties; both the couch surfers and those who own the couch get something positive out of it.

Some might like the fact that it's cheap, and it's true, it's cheaper than getting a hotel room. But for me, that has nothing to do with it. For me, getting a hotel room and eating in a restaurant around the corner and breakfast at the buffet in the lobby is not travel. Watching TV in your hotel room in Paris or checking your Facebook at an internet café in Prague is not stepping out of the box; of course these things aren't forbidden while on the road, but if that's all you do, you might as well save yourself the cost of a flight, order in Thai food and buy yourself a postcard of Bangkok instead. To me, travel is experiencing the culture, experiencing the day to day life of a city, walking the backstreets and eating in restaurants and drinking in pubs you might not know about if not by word of mouth from locals.

So these are the reasons we wanted to stay with C & E in Paris, who we had already hosted in Clermont earlier this year. Opening up a neighborhood I hadn't explored as much as others, the convenience of having a flat near a metro stop in the middle of all our ridiculously complicated immigration rendez-vous, and an opportunity to enjoy autumn in Paris for a few days one last time.

**** POST EDITED **** (Because I hadn't slept in four days and it was just whining.)