23. August 2008 by azarethroy.

I :heart: NY. I’ve been to New York a few times before, but I’ve never connected with CouchSurfers there. This time, I headed down especially to hang out with CouchSurfers. And I was not disappointed. New York is an amazing city and even more amazing when you have locals there to party with.

The NYC crew organized an outstanding event, right down to Seth having an open-home all week (a.k.a. The Living Room), Mike organizing couches for EVERYONE and Bastien getting sponsorship for free Red Bull, burgers, beer and vodka. It was a jam-packed week with little room for sleep in the city that never sleeps!

Sunday DAY 1: Arrived in the morning by bus. Hung out with Katryn and Birgit. In the evening, headed to the Pink Party. 3 hours of free vodka. Broke my sunglasses.
Monday DAY 2: Picnic and movie in Bryant Park - The Candidate. Kinda boring movie (Or as Michelle would say - worst movie she’s seen in her life) but it was fun to chill in the park. After that we headed to a bar where it was free PBR beer for 1 hour!
Tuesday DAY 3: Bought a new pair of sunglasses. Petr and I lazed around in The Living Room for most of the day. For dinner we joined the group for yummy Mexican. And then headed out to the Pub Crawl. Broke my new pair of sunglasses by the end of the night.
Wednesday DAY 4: I wanted to do the Bronx Zoo, but Coney Island was much closer. Lots of fun though. Bought yet another pair of sunglasses. In the evening Petr and I headed to McLaren (?) Park to meet my new host Misha. We had a picnic and hung out for a bit. Later, Brishen and I went to catch up with my old host, Dan, so I could get my things. We ended up at Richard’s after-party until 4 am, so by the time we got back to Misha’s with my things it was 7am! Fortunately my sunglasses survived.
Thursday DAY 5: Did the Statue of Liberty tour (by myself because I was late!). But it was nice to spend some quality time with Paddington bear. My sunglasses were still intact which was great too. After that was the Chelsea gallery tour which was very interesting. Especially the last gallery which was not so much about the art but more about the free vodka and helium (an excellent mix). That night was spent at the notorious Revival Bar. Great times.

Friday DAY 6: Friday afternoon was spent doing a fun session of Free Hugs in Union Square followed by a trip to MOMA. And then straight to MI-5 bar, which turned out to be a little overzealous. (Let’s just say that drinking on an empty stomach is bad). Yet I still got dragged to an after-party, apparently. A think a number of CouchSurfers saved my life there. Even my sunglasses somehow made it.

Saturday DAY 7: Quite worn out by this stage, we hung out with Misha for a bit. He graciously made us a yummy breakfast. After that I headed to The Living Room to help set up for Kenny’s Castaways. It was a good night, albeit sad to say goodbye to everyone.
Sunday DAY 8: Had all my stuff with me, but still managed to go to Shoko’s brunch which included all you can drink sangria (yum!) and onwards to Central Park for some Ultimate Frisbee. We headed to the Silent Rave after that, but was too exhausted to participate. So Petr and I chilled out until my bus (Greyhound Neon - NYC to Toronto) came. But of course, I finally dropped my sunglasses and it broke!

• Days: 8
• Hosts: 5
• Sunglasses: 3
• Awesomeness: Priceless

Amazing week. New York City rocks. New York CouchSurfers rock. I would live in New York in a heartbeat, if I could. Ah well, I shall be back.

current mission: Detox

Posted in usa, new york, couchsurfing, free hugs | No Comments »

23. August 2008 by azarethroy.

I’m afraid of Open CouchSurfing too. Why? Because negativity is contagious and they sure are a negative bunch! This loose collective of “pirates of CouchSurfing” started off on a noble cause - truth, justice and the CouchSurfing way (my words).

Basically, the pirates noticed cracks in CouchSurfing’s foundation - insufficient financial transparency, inadequate communication from the leaders, centralized power, accusations of cronyism and perhaps the most concerning of all - censorship creep. Gosh, had they become Veit?

I agreed with some of what the pirates had to say. They wanted CouchSurfing to become an independent foundation the way Wikipedia is. I get that. Unfortunately, some CouchSurfing members can be a little cultish and refuse to acknowledge weakness in the system. Ironically, it seems like “Open CouchSurfers” in their overzealaous enthuasiasm became it’s anti-thesis. Rather than focus on constructive goals like promoting their holy grail of hospitality a.k.a. Bewelcome, they just became sad, bitter and resentful of CouchSurfing.

I got to the point that this negativity affected me greatly. I was resigned to the fact that this social experiment had failed. I quit being a CouchSurfing Ambassador and stopped hosting, surfing or even meeting other CouchSurfers. I returned to the real world.

Six months passed.

I woke up one day realizing that my life was missing something. I felt disconnected from the global community. I no longer felt like a world traveler. I was just another rat in the rat race.

I missed CouchSurfing. Aptly enough, it was close to June 12th - CouchSurfing’s so-called “birthday”. So I decided to turn up to a local event in Toronto. And there, amongst the dozen or so different nationalities, I felt like I was home. Here were my people.

So do I think that CouchSurfing as an organization is perfect now? Of course not. But nothing in life is perfect. It is what you want it to be. If you focus on the flaws, it’s flawed. If you focus on the amazing people you meet through the site, it’s amazing. It’s all about gratitude and realistic expectations.

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