I'm blogging elsewhere today...And not just anywhere but at the A Travel Around the World blog. Here's an excerpt from my post there...

My friends look at me a mix of disbelief, skepticism and disgust on their faces. "Seriously? You'd let strangers sleep in your home, use your bathroom and leave all their germs around, and you'll get NOTHING in return? Why would you do that?" Seriously. Why would you?...

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...because it is this Ikea loveseat which cannot even fit me (if you know me, you know I'm not the tallest person in the world). We've had guests tell us stories of the places they've slept in (and we've seen some photos too) and our couch may seem cozy in comparison but again, that is not where our surfers sleep.

About a week before our first guests Miriam and Tamar arrived, we went to a camping supplies store and bought an air mattress which has proven to be an excellent investment. And the extra small room in our apartment in Skopje (which, at the time we were first moving in, we were wondering what we'll use for) came in handy. We kind of approached this as if we were the ones who would be surfing our home and even though a lot of couchsurfers have had all kinds of experiences (some even with sleeping in garages) we know we'd appreciate some privacy and so we were set on offering the same to our guests as well...
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No, no THAT story...our CouchSurfing virginity!

The reason I got to thinking about it is because today I was sort of interviewed for a couchsurfing related writing assignment by Ellie, a young journalism student. One of Ellie's questions was about how we started couchsurfing.

If you look at our profile you'll notice we've been members since 2008. However, our first CS experience was in August 2009. You see, we lived in Greece for maaaany many years
and joined couchsurfing just as we were making the decision to pack up and come back home. Initially, we thought that we can handle hosting people even with all the craziness going on in our lives during the endless ordeal of leaving a country you've spent a third of your life in. And we also thought, how bad can it get? We'll get, what, one surf request a month?
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