Surf your city!
When did you visit http://www.couchsurfing.org/ the last time? On a journey when all the hostels where booked? Before you started your travel and you didn´t want to spend too much money? Did you ever even think of surfing the couches in your own city?
When I moved to Hildesheim, Germany for my studies in October 2010 I met a lot of lovely people in the university and I entered a shared flat with a colleague I got to know in my part-time job. But after some weeks I felt like I didn´t know anybody who lived in this city and was not in my subjects. And every time I met someone new I found out that they come from other cities as well and just live here for some years to get their degree. And I asked myself how I got to know people when I was abroad and there was the idea: Couchsurfing in your own city!
I signed up for another profile with a slight change of my name and as current city I just used my hometown Stuttgart, Germany. And then I wrote messages to people in Hildesheim who live in shared flats but follow another lifestyle then my community of uni. People, who already work in social centres, who study in Hannover but live here, and folks who live in shared flats for more than 15 years. And when the first answer arrived that I could stay there for a night on my faked travel from Stuttgart to the North Sea, I stuffed some clothes and things I would need in my backpack and went there for the night. 20 minutes walking distance, 20 minutes to create a story why I wanted to stop in Hildesheim, 20 minutes to get into the character I proposed in my profile. “I love to travel and to visit friends who live far away from our childhood place, I still live in my parents´ flat and work as an intern in the National Theatre of Stuttgart.”, I repeated in my mind the whole way there. I was afraid that someone of the people who live with my contact could have seen me already at a party.
Inhabitants
But when I entered the place they welcomed me and told me their names and what they are doing here. And right from the start they believed me when I said I would take a journey through Germany to see the North Sea for the first time in my life. When they offered me a walk through the city I told that I was tired (because I was afraid to meet friends) and so we sat on the balcony and talked about Hildesheim while I was pretending that I just knew the way from the train station to their home. I got into the role and when I had to leave on the next morning after four hours of sleep I told them the truth. And they were just laughing and asking if I had a camera with me and if they were already on the internet. From that time I spent some evenings with two of them. Still it is a running gag of us when I tell something ridiculous and they just say “Stop! Are you into your role again?” and we laugh. But so I found friends who I wouldn´t have met in an easy way otherwise.
I tried this two other times and the third time I got caught in the morning when the door bell rang and a friend of mine came in to retake his book from the people there and greeted me. This was quite annoying but still the situation turned out to be even more fun because he just said: “Well, Lea is kind of a little Wallraff, that suits her.” We had breakfast all together and I told them why I did this and just one girl of the flat got angry because I lied to them. Anyway we had a lovely day out then and everything was fine, they visited my place and we took a walk to the lake.
In conclusion I have to say that I was always in tension because I had to stay in my role but of course to talk freely and truthful for getting in contact with interesting people was the sense of this whole action. In my case I thought that they wouldn´t invite me when they would know that I live here as well.
It´s another thing of meeting people while travelling then meeting up strangers in the own city who want to stay over night.
The communities I got in touch with are people with stories, with experiences in and around Hildesheim, with another knowledge than the students who just come here for their Bachelor and leave again. Working people who live in shared flats are not the regular case and they talk differently about politics, life and the city.
Try it! Go, surf the couches in your city! And get the reactions in the morning. You will gain so many experiences and various points of view.
I would love to read your comments when you did that. Have fun!
