Seattle and the couchsurfing experiment

d4d

Switzerland1066 Posts

October 19 2007 09:32 GMT

Okay, I am sorry folks, I have kept silenced for too long. But I was busy outside the reach of the Internet, you know, traveling around.

Let's start where I left... I was leaving Denver and going to the emerald city Seattle.

First off there is no roadtrip story, because I took a plane. Yeah I hear you, what a pussy, this is not the adventurous ways I claim to crave.
Well the thing is there was that little event called the WCG I did not want to miss, and I could not find a ride on craigslist nor elsewhere. Taking a bus was kind of out of the question because of a nasty torticoli that was killing my neck. So I flew like a common tourist.

But I wasn't one.

Before I left Denver, I had no places to stay in Seattle. No hotel reservation and no friends there to host me kindly.
I used a nifty website called couchsurfing to hopefully find a home away from home.
The thing is, I got no answers before I left. That girl called Klaire (yes with a K) was ok to host me, but had not confirmed that, so I sent an email and just prayed she would answer it by text messaging as I boarded my plane.

The plane trip was eventless, no bearded fanatics tried to take control and to fly us into a building, boring.

But as soon as we landed, I turned my phone back. Bip bip the reassuring sound of the text message was music to my ears. Klaire had answered me and got me all the intels I needed to get to her place.

When I got there, she left me the key to her house after seeing me for about 5 minutes. We would not see each other for the next 5 days.

Now you got to be amazed at the level of trust some people just give to each other.

To better understand that, I must explain couchsurfing a little more in details.

Couchsurfing is a webbased community of travelers. You sign up and fill up a quite huge profile, stating where you live, who you are and most importantly, if and how many person you can host on your couch.
After that you become part of a huge database of couches available to sleep on for the pennyless travelers all around the world. If you are traveling you can search that database and enter in contact via the website with the couch owner.
It has a very good system of cross references, so that no psychopath roam the site.

It is sufficient to say that it rules and that I had a wonderful time around the house of Klaire in west Seattle. Klaire, her roomate Isabelle and her boyfriend were really nice people

That being said, back to the story.

The next 4 days I spent at WCG.

I won't tell you what I did there, because it is already eSport history.

After the WCG, I spent a week more in Seattle, just visiting.

I went to the Space Needle, but not on top of it (tourist attractions are not my thing).

I went downtown.

I went to capitol hill to pay my respect to the Grunges.

I went to the art museum

I went to Alki beach with this punk.

I went underground.

I went to a couchsurfer private bar that was the best in the northwest.

I went to the fish market

I went in the fog.

After a week, I had seen enough, so I wandered online to look for a rideshare out of Seattle. I wanted to go to Venice, California. But I found a ride to Vegas instead...

So I said to myself, let's go lose some money there, I have so much of it. So I went.

BlueRoyaL

United States2493 Posts

October 19 2007 10:38 GMT

man, i didn't know that kind of community existed. i'm really amazed, or even more surprised, that people would just let other travelers stay in without a fee. That's really nice of her and good for you haha.

I live just 20 minutes from Seattle so a lot of those pictures look familiar to me. Although seattle doesn't have the best tourist attractions, there's a lot of random/interesting places you can go to. Imo clubs suck here but meh.

hope you had fun

fanatacist

10319 Posts

October 19 2007 10:52 GMT

Great post, awesome pictures n_n You sure know how to have fun. And like others said, that's a great website o; I will definitely make use of it!

QuanticHawk

United States32081 Posts

October 19 2007 13:54 GMT

nice man, youre having a sick adventure!

Schones_Chaos

United States226 Posts

October 19 2007 14:49 GMT

On October 19 2007 19:38 BlueRoyaL wrote:
man, i didn't know that kind of community existed. i'm really amazed, or even more surprised, that people would just let other travelers stay in without a fee. That's really nice of her and good for you haha.

I live just 20 minutes from Seattle so a lot of those pictures look familiar to me. Although seattle doesn't have the best tourist attractions, there's a lot of random/interesting places you can go to. Imo clubs suck here but meh.

hope you had fun

I live about 30 mins from seattle. Imo its more interesting to visit then to live there =/

paper

13196 Posts

October 19 2007 19:18 GMT

nice picss

Binky1842

United States2599 Posts

October 20 2007 01:10 GMT

My friend took me to capitol hill, and we walked by that church (the pic with the banner) and around that part of town for a bit.

Good to see you posting again :D

FuDDx

United States5008 Posts

October 20 2007 03:59 GMT

i mis s you sir d4d and im hoing your travels will take you to my neck of the woods.Ever been to a drive-in well you can if you come maybe ill let you cut a block of ice.Was a great time in seattle with you all and i did manage to not get lost all the way back to the car rental place.^_^thanks for the fun last day was a neat way to wind down form the event.Hope to see you soon.

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