Random "Best Of" Pics from Europe

Why I Still Believe in CouchSurfing, Part the Second

So...to pick up where we left off, my first host in Warszawa was extremely helpful from the outset, coming to pick me up at the train station, giving me maps & directions & invitations to various events. I assumed, given his age (20 years my senior; I am 27), that he was a fatherly sort of person, & was grateful for the help.

The uncomfortable situations began almost immediately: hugs as I left for the morning during which he slid his hands down my back quickly enough to graze my butt before I could pull away; random comments about Indian women; one evening, a conversation about CouchSurfing that ended with his mentioning, "If I said I have never slept with my CouchSurfing guests, I would be lying; if I said I had never slept with any hosts, that would be a lie, too." Most people reading this will same a similar reaction: That's fucked up, for one, and for two, why didn't you get out immediately?

This is, of course, the reaction of someone outside the situation, although I must concede to this point. Why DON'T we remove ourselves immediately & forcibly from these types of scenarios? Why DON'T we open our mouths & tell the offending party where to step off, that what they're doing is inappropriate & wrong? It's good question, I allow; it's very easy to become incensed by the way someone has been treated & to let that indignation tell you what to tell them they should have done. I can only reference myself in this case, to say that I had no idea how to react. It was shocking. I had entrusted myself to this person's care, as one does whilst surfing, & rather than having a pleasant, friendly, respectful host, I now had a pleasant, overly-friendly & audacious one. As difficult as this may be for others to understand, I believe it is also a valid point. Many women (or men, for that matter) are at a loss as to how to effectively remove themselves from a situation like this. In the case of CS, it becomes all the more difficult for one's predisposition to timidity: We are guests, and the host has been gracious enough to provide a bed, or guidance around the city, or a meal, or all of the above; we feel as though the only reaction available to us ought to be gratitude. Or, more simply, we are taken aback by this abuse of the project, especially by those who (again, ON PAPER) come to us so highly recommended.

To shorten this lengthy account, the situation got out of hand a few days later, after I had-probably unnecessarily-put up with these comments & gestures for four or so nights. Having walked around Warszawa all day in the cold, I arrived back at the apartment to find my host was not in. This was a huge relief, but it lasted only briefly, as he called to say he would be home shortly. I sat stiffly on one end of the couch as he flipped through the T.V. channels & then suggested we watch a movie. At one point during "The Break-up" (which I do not suggest watching), he laughed at something Vince Vaughn said & clapped his hand down over my thigh, then started rubbing my leg. I moved. As soon as the movie was over, I stood up and said I was going to sleep. He had been sleeping in the living room on the pull-out bed, giving me the bedroom with its door of frosted glass & reassuring bolt lock. Instead of leaving me alone, however, he came into the bedroom (as I was not yet asleep, the door was open; I was straightening up my things) and stood in the doorway.

"So", he said, "Do I get to sleep with you tonight, or do I have to sleep in my own bed?"


I believe I felt three things:
1) Confusion: How could someone who came so highly recommended by others on the CouchSurfing project be doing this? How could he deem it "OK" to approach a female guest like this? While I doubted I was the only woman to experience this kind of sexual harassment, the references left on his profile were undeniably stellar; no one else had made any comments regarding him approaching them sexually. Was I just overreacting?
2) Panic: I had no idea what to do. Again, as you do, I was relying on this person for shelter in Warszawa. I knew there were plenty of hostels in the area, but I had no idea how to remove myself from the house without being forced into a lengthy & probably unpleasant altercation. I had keys to the house, & the security codes for the gates. I was on foot with a heavy backpack. How far would this guy go?
3) Total Paralysis: Based mostly on the combination of the two above feelings. It was now close to 3 AM. How in the world was I supposed to find somewhere to stay that night?

The end result of this was that I stayed that night, slept not at all, and immediately left the house the next morning. I spent the rest of that day touring Warszawa with a friend, then returned to the house only to pack up my things & leave; another Couchsurfing host picked me up.

So, why do I still believe wholeheartedly in CS, its mission, its participants, & the system in general?

Because occurrences like the above are a rarity. : In my experience, the vast, vast majority of CSers are, if not innocent, completely devoted to making the system work in their favor, which entails making it work for EVERYONE. They are open, fun, friendly, and just the right amount crazy, but never disrespectful, intrusive or sleazy.

Because for every oddball, creep or personality mismatch, there are hundreds of absolute gems: This was never more true than in Warszawa. Immediately upon leaving the nightmare, I walked straight into one of the best CS experiences of the trip. Staying with my 2nd host (hosts, actually: they're brothers) was so much fun, & I plan to return to Warszawa to surf with them again on my way back home. You may encounter creeps, like I did. You may have hosts or surfers that you quite simply go not get along with, for various reason. You may host someone whose habits strike you as odd, or perhaps somewhat alarming; you may surf with someone who just seems 'off' somehow. This may leave a bad taste in your mouth until you next host/surf, and I can guarantee you that, next time or the time after that or consistently for a year, you will make the best friends you never knew you could have, & have experiences with them you'd never have had without CS.

Because I refuse to let go of my faith in human goodness, hospitality, & altruistic trust.: Shit happens. We all know that. There are bad people & weird people & sneaky people all over the world. But that doesn't mean that you should walk through the world with a can of Mace in your pocket, or stay only in hotels, or refuse to travel to a place because you heard "the crime rate is really high". I refuse to live by looking over my shoulder constantly, traveling only from point A to point B, speaking only to those who "look safe" or are familiar. CS is based on the fundamental & integral belief that human nature also includes the inclination towards altruism: by helping & supporting our peers we ensure our own survival, or, helping others to help ourselves. CS is devoted to this principle.

I will continue to surf, to host & to explain both to everyone I know, in the hopes that CS attracts more & more of its essential & upstanding members.

Terrible Belgian Weather: 1. Me: Negative 10

Or: How I Learned to be Soaking Wet and Like It
Mons, Belgium

Please do not insert innuendo into the above (which in and of itself is an innuendo, and now I am screwed.)

The first 3 days here in Belgium were spectacular. The weather held marvelously, producing hot-pink sunsets & warm breezes, & for the first time since leaving Krakow, the sun soaked through my black fleece so that I was forced to remove it, & walk around in a t-shirt. It was not to last. For the better part of the first day, I rode a borrowed bicycle down side roads to emerge at SHAPE-the headquarters for all allied personnel in Europe, a daunting concept, even more so when one considers the events leading to its creation. (Here, of course, is what's amazed me regularly since arriving in Europe: that all of this could be built back up from rubble & ash, that it had to be in the first place...)

It started to rain after the 3rd day (sounds like the Bible, eh?). This wasn't any rain. This was driving, pelting, cold fucking rain. The driving & pelting were helped along by a brisk wind. I attempted time & time again to venture out into the countryside, camera protectively slung under one arm.

Pastoralism has its own appeal, an appeal that comes from piles of corncobs & sugar beets & white potatoes heaped carefully by the roadside, waiting for transport. From a flock of big, orange-billed, honking geese, curly tails wagging under a stand of lemon trees, green grass under webbed yellow feet. From houses & barns & streets made solely of brick, crumbling away slowly under your feet: this contribution to both the life of the town & to you, since the brick is polished smoother by your walking, & the residue of it comes home with you, to be preserved in the soles of your shoes. This is where I'm staying in Belgium: outside town, and I walk down the back roads from cluster of houses to sprawling field to duck yard, nowhere in particular in mind. Then again, to be particular is not a habit one forms while backpacking alone around a foreign country.

Two days into the trip, I'm already restless, having completely unpacked my ugly blue packframe, laying clothes out in folded, nice piles, doing laundry, showering in my own bathroom with fluffy rose-pink towels. My host mom & dad have dinner on the table every night, a fireplace that roars (though for the life of me I can't get it to light after fewer than 6 tries). Every night we sit around the table & chat about our days, what we'll do tomorrow, gossip from home (the States). My feet are stretching under the covers at night, accustomed now to 5 or 6 hours per day of walking nowhere in particular. I elect to take the bus into Mons to do errands for my host mom, who needs some things from a specific store. She describes it, and gives me directions, and says she knows for sure there's a big yellow plastic button on the door handle. It seems fairly self-explanatory. Instead, I march resolutely up and down the streets of Mons for hours, searching. In the Singer Sewing Machine Parts Store, I finally give up and ask the shopkeeper if he thinks it still exists.
La Vitresse, c'est fermer, n'est pas?"
Non, c'est impossible. La Vitresse est ici, a cote de la fontagne.

Fuck. I've already passed the damn fountain 5 times, and I know it's not there. In frustration, I march in the opposite direction, in complete ignorance of what might this way lie. Suddenly, I'm outside the square, and everything is quiet, but I spy a pub with the ubiquitous Leffe beer sign above its entrance. A glass of wine sounds amazing. It is 2 PM.

As soon as I open the door, I know this is my kind of place. Small, out of the way. The proprietor wears a long white beard & John Lennon glasses. There's a little old lady with a newspaper & a cup of tea sitting at the bar, a couple of disheveled men smoking cigarettes in the corner. My bad French isn't so bad that I can't order un vin rouge, s'il vous plait, which costs me 1.90 Euro, a fucking bargain, if you ask me. All along the windows are cards. I peer curiously at one as I sit down; they're info cards for Free Trade & Organics, explaining that 25% of the profits from specific products purchased here will go to OxFam. I wonder if my wine is one of them. Something French is blasting on the radio, and I understand approximately .0025 of the lyrics, but I love it, with its light-sounding guitar & rock n' roll rhythm. I pull up a chair in the back, next to the huge chalkboard displaying the menu, & yank T.S. Eliot out of my backpack. I take a sip of the wine: for 1.90 Euro, it's impressively rich & full of the taste of pepper & plums.

Outside, it's starting to darken, the clouds coming in yet again. I know it will rain as soon as I leave this place. That's just the way my luck is with weather around here. The kindly bar owner brings over a coaster & nods. He, like everyone else here, seems to know a tourist when they see one, but they don't let on. Finishing good old T.S.'s "Ariel Poems", less certain than ever whether I like that venerable old poet at all, I throw on all my gear, pack everything up & step out. Prophesy fulfilled (too much Tiresias in the last hour??): it immediately starts to fucking pour. Awesome.

I've got another 10 minute walk to the bus station. In this 10 minutes, I meander, hatless, through crowds of Belgians returning from, or going to, work. Sensibly, they have umbrellas, plastic ponchos, shopping bags wrapped around their purses. Rain is absolutely streaming down my face, my hair is soaked, & my pant-legs are becoming heavy with water. Yet, as I walk, I'm passing cathedrals & the famous Belfry of Mons. There are pubs & shops with their windows lit up, some blaring American hip-hop, others filtering just voices & the clank of glasses out the door. The Christmas decorations are up, every street strung overhead with tiny white lights. Webs of them illuminate what's below just as much as what's above: the bustle of all of us on the cobbles underneath, & up over our heads, the arches & statues & carved stones of the churches. From the numerous patisseries & brasseries comes the mingled scent of pain au chocolat, gaufres, poulet au roti & everything is somehow commonplace & rich all at the same time.

I finally reach the bus stop to find that the #15 to SHAPE won't arrive for another 20 minutes. It's a bit cold, & I can feel the chill in my legs & hands. I huddle up on a bench, & an elderly Belgian woman arrives to sit next to me. She's petite & demure-looking, dressed stylishly in a long skirt & flat black shoes, even in this rain. As she puts her packages down, she drops her umbrella. I stoop to pick it up, & hand it to her. C'est ta parapluie, madame. She hooks the offending contraption over her arm & smiles at me, pats my arm a couple of times.

Ahh, merci beaucoup, mademoiselle. Tu est tres gentile, tres gentile.

You're so kind, so kind. A thanks is ever & always a warm draught, no matter the weather. We can barely communicate, since I struggle still to reply quickly to rapidly-spoken French, but we sit amiably together on the bench, & she turns to me again, smiles, & mimes a shiver: C'est tres froid au'jourd-hui! Pas mal. I do the same. In front of us, part of the Christmas carnival looms: rides blaring more hip-hop music as they sweep children above & past us, the cotton-candy vendor, game stands hung with purple & gold & blue stuffed animals & balloons, & the woman's arm against my shoulder (for we are squeezed onto the small bench with her packages between us) is warm. I'm still soaking wet, but the free-trade wine I drank warms my belly still, as does the casual salute the old bartender threw my way as I left, & this is how I got soaking wet & learned to love it, while the buses carry us all back home & the evening wears on in its own way.

Why I still believe in CouchSurfing, possibly now more than ever.

Part the First: A Little History


There are a few to whom I've told the partially-horrific story of my Couchsurfing experience in Warszawa. Please don't tell my mother. In fact, don't tell anyone who's skeptical, nervous or downright disparaging of the project; it will just confirm their fears. I suppose I ought to let this account speak for itself, but first, a preface, and an explanation of the Couchsurfing project for those who've never been exposed:

The Couchsurfing project was founded by a young gentleman who, upon deciding to world-travel, became aware first of its inevitable costs, the most consumptive of which is always lodging, and second, of the fact that he had had enough of paying them. So, before going to Iceland, he kicked out roughly 1,500 emails to local students and residents, asking if anyone had a spare bed/couch/piece of floor he might occupy. The return was plentiful: over 50 potential hosts. Casey Fenton was hooked and determined to launch a hospitality site devoted to making travel for young people (for any people, ultimately!) free, friendly and safe.

The 'safe' part is where most people have questions. To doubters, we appear as nothing but a travelers' MySpace, a giant collective of faceless, nameless and bodiless posters just running around waiting to be mugged, stabbed or raped. CS has been of late at the forefront of travel news, the center of a murder investigation. (Just Google Couchsurfing and murder and you'll see the result...)

Having hosted several surfers in my own home before I came to Europe, I remain without doubt as to the safety of CS. I've hosted only guys, young ones at that, one from Turkey, another from New York and so on and so forth. All were kind, polite, helpful, and harmless. I've met up for coffee and drinks with other CSers that I was unable to host, another pleasant experience. None of this, however, is a substitute for being the 'surfer' rather than the 'surfee' or host.

My first host was a woman, and she is fabulous (I say is, because at the time of this post, we're planning on meeting back up in Lisboa for another epic night of dancing). Clearly there are assets to surfing with only women, if you are a woman, first and foremost being the relative lack of risk to your person and personal boundaries. Having come from such a positive first surfing experience, and based on my experiences as a host for young guys, I didn't think twice about soliciting a couch in my next port of call, Warszawa, PL. I requested to surf with many people in that particular city, and received a reply from a man who was listed in the CS directory as the City Ambassador for all of Warszawa. He had over 200 guests boasted on his profile and the references were undeniably positive. ON PAPER, this guy looked like the man to meet if you were an avid surfer, and more so if you were just starting out. He said he was able to host me, and I accepted, little knowing that my own Couchsurfing nightmare was lying in wait.

At long last, more pictures...

Lille, FR.


In transit, SNCB from Lille, FR to Mons, BE


Lille, FR


Lille, FR



Sunset, Erbisoeul, BE
Mons, Belgium & Lille, France; random photos from an SNCB train

Distance: Successive Portraits

Mons, Belgium

I.

All my plans to leave are slow,
but I'm a patient man.
Patient with whom, it's hard
to say.
Snow makes my shadow
indistinguishable
from my Self.

I paint.

I paint until I can see you again,
iridescent in the fumes,
plastic car parts as limbs,
your body
a cloud, off-white like thunderheads,

the kind I used to dream
I could walk
or run
or lie upon
without
fallling through.

II.
All my plans to leave

are slow, but I'm
a patient man,
since there are still
leaves on the trees, still fires
burning in the Interior,
& the sick haze
they make is a fever
dream,
of the sort I once had
ill in bed for days,
heat like a hot wax
creeping up my face-
this it it
then,
death mask,
features solidified-
& you
brought me what you call
your 'special drink':
lemon peel
& clover honey
& a shot of whiskey
in black tea:
Drink this
& I tried, blaze
in my throat like the taste
of you under
my tongue
the day you said I was the only
one to make you do that,
ever.

III.

All my plans
to leave
are slow
but I'm a patient
man & today
I smoked
the last
cigarette:
Marlboro Lite
because
you always told me
smoking kills
& here I am
chewing peppermint
gum
poking today's paper
into
the fire
with the cigarette
packet, waiting
for the craving,
for the descent
toward madness
to start.

IV.

All my plans to leave
are slow but I'm a patient man.
I can walk to the sea from here,
& from there I can, & have,
cast out bottles,
with notes inside, sometimes,
& other times with scraps
of sheet metal, or paint scrapings,
or bits of wire wrapped in copper,
or full of the shavings
from a fiberglass boat hull.

I thought you might like
them, & I'm not good
with words.

Only with my hands.
Only with them wrapped around
a welding torch, or a paintbrush,
or the stubs of black pens,
the ones I used to shade your hair
in that sketch.

Most of the time, I toss
the bottles out
full of my hopes, which I rest
on you,
& these bottles are full
of nothing, of nothing at all.

Let me tell you why I cannot go to Auschwitz.

There were women scattered over the floor on scraps of straw, some, some of them quite obviously with the mark of death on their faces. Uh, their, they, they, all of them looked just horrible, and of course we could see they were emaciated and, and ill. And something that I have never been able to forget, was an extraordinary thing that happened. The girl who was my guide made sort of a sweeping gesture over this scene of devastation, and said the following words: "Noble be man, merciful and good." And I could hardly believe that she was able to summon a poem by the German poet Goethe, which was called--is called--"The Divine," at such a moment. And there was nothing that she could have said that would have underscored the grim irony of the situation better than, than what she did. And it was a totally shattering experience for me.
-Liberator Kurt Klein, from the Holocaust Museum's archives.

Cracow, Poland, November 2009


For god's sake.

I invoke something I don't even believe in, thinking of this. We are sitting around the kitchen table at the hostel, a group of us, and discussing what we're planning to do in Cracow. Everyone else, all six of them, have a bit of a go-around. Two of them are Jewish.

-Are you guys going to do Auschwitz?

Yeah, I reckon we'll go in the morning.

-What about all you guys? You going, too?

I am the only one at the table who says no. They stare. I stare back. There's a division between us now, and suddenly I am swamped by protests:

-You can't come here and NOT go to Auschwitz. I mean, it's so important. You really have to go.

I bridle, as I always do when someone tells me I HAVE to do something. No, I don't. I don't have to do anything. But this time it is not a mere refusal out of petulance; it's not just that I feel backed into the inevitable corner formed by the intersection of one person's choice to action, and another's to inaction.

I cannot do this thing. I cannot go to Auschwitz.

-No, seriously! I can't believe you're not going. Why not?

Let me tell you. Let me tell you, as I told them, why I cannot go to Auschwitz.

It is not my story to tell.

All these comments around the table underscore immediately what makes me shudder with revulsion when I am dragged into a conversation like this one, all about how, to truly be confronted by the horror and the grief and the scale of it all, one must go there, must attend the sites, and hear the true accounts, and listen to the 30-minute documentary film. The same revulsion surfaces again whilst reading others' blogs or essays about how they've gone there and done that. How 'here is a photo of the gate that says ARBEIT MACHT FREI'. About how it's changed them.

And yet, what is it that changes within them, save for the amplification of non-generational guilt, of that universal apology that wells up in all of us when we think of it? We are so sorry. We are so sorry that someone did this to you. We are sorry, of course, but for what? The cliches are flying all around the table: overwhelming, terrible tragedy, absolutely unbelievable, living people like skeletons. I can feel my irritation growing. Why is everyone so intent upon this, the one denial they've heard of the desire they all feel to set foot on that grass and to walk through that gate and to view the collected, preserved piles of eyeglasses, of children's shoes, of human hair?

It is because they do not understand that there are some things so profound one does not need to see them to experience them. We've all heard the speeches following 9/11, from politicians and celebrities and public figures. We've all seen the news clips, read the articles. As much as those events were unbelievable, they were also a source of deep sorrow for the world at large, in countries to whom nothing had as of yet happened, in places one might not have expected. And some of these sympathizers, who cried when they heard, whose furrowed brows appeared on T.V. or in the paper had never set foot on U.S. soil. The mere thought of it, the application of the imagination--placing themselves in the shoes of the victims, of the families, of the country as an entity--was enough. It was too much. It was more than they could handle.

And maybe that's it then, the primary reason that I simply cannot bring myself to view Auschwitz: selfishness. I have sat through enough films, in class or at home, with the lights dimmed, with tears streaming down my face. I have read Anne Frank's diary, and Eli Wiesel's novels, and transcripts from interviews with survivors, with civilians, the Nuremberg Trials. I know what's there, in Auschwitz, now arranged and displayed and ready for viewing. And I know what I would do, if I went:

I would lose my mind. I would lose my mind from sorrow.

To confront this place is to confront what I already know: that evil in its human forms exists like this, that 6 million people were shot and gassed and starved. I already know these things, the numbers. I already know what I do not want to know: that we are capable this. Yes, we. For why should we be allowed to distinguish when humanity is itself an entity? I know what would happen there, in front of the display of children's shoes (children! My god.). I would be broken by it. I would cry. Perhaps I would vomit. And I would become angry. I would become angry at us. I would become angry...at myself.

All of this, dear reader, to you, seems perhaps hyperbolic and perhaps false. I cannot convince you that it isn't. I cannot convince you, either, of how one should react. They're asking me again, why I cannot do this thing. Why I don't decide to go with them:

-You should just come. You might be surprised.
Yeah, isn't that the point? It's supposed to be hard on you.
-It's not like it's fun or something.

Someone asks about flash photography. Someone else pulls out a brochure.

-No, no. You can take pictures there. It says.
Oh, ok cool.

Pictures. As if this were another tourist attraction. "This is me in front of Auschwitz."

For god's sake.

This, again, I have no desire to do, to experience. Hordes of tourists with cameras, people with backpacks and purses and maps. To be surrounded by those who have come "to do Auschwitz", to feel a powerful remorse, then to get back on the bus and inquire where one might find some lunch around here. I do not want to be near anyone, if nor when I fall apart. I couldn't bear it. I cannot bear a mass of humanity standing about trying to fathom what it all means, in the same spot where humanity was being dismantled, defiled, torn apart.

And so I tell them with as much vehemence as I can:

This is not my story to tell. It is and always will be my story to hear.

For when I cease to listen and begin to speak, I am adding a layer of sentimentality, a layer of falsehood, a veil. It is not my story to tell how I stood in front of a tour guide and was moved to tears by his speech. Not my story to tell anyone that I have seen the gate marked ARBEIT MACHT FREI, nor how it might have chilled me. It is not my story to add photos to, of the barracks emptied and cleaned, or the ovens.

It is my story to hear and hear alone, about how someone else was saved here, and someone else died, and some people more lost their mothers and children, and fathers, and lives. To never put an image to save for those made by voices, by memoirs and films.

As to the need to see it, to understand, I will tell you now that I never, never want will. That going there will not help the desperately angry and lost feeling I have when I am reminded that this thing has happened. I do not want anger to dissolve completely into sorrow; anger is active. Anger has inertia. I must grieve and rage at the same time, sometimes, to continue on in a world where we battle the seeds of this thing always.

I cannot be the person who sits at a table, and puts on a list of things to see today, Concentration camps.

Perhaps no one accepts this. Perhaps I sound bitter, or disdainful to those who did choose to go. I assure you I am not. They tried to convince me once more to come with them, and in my head, once again, I heard my own voice crying out,

For god's sake, don't ask me. For god's sake, I can't.

the pleas we make to divinity when we cannot comprehend what is asked of us, what's happened, what we thought could not be.

Two days later, we take a tour of Wieliczka Salt Mines. On the bus, I meet two women from Holland, one who's been to Cracow many times in the last few years. I've been to the camps, she says, I've been more than once.

She tells me she doesn't know, anymore, what to make of it. She says she's always brought to her knees by it. Then she tells me she won't be going this time. Her friend will just have to go alone.

-Why is that?, I ask her. Why not this time?

She tells me that (and this she cannot take any longer), between the gate exiting Auschwitz, and the gate leading into Birkenau, there are always people taking photos. She says she can't go anymore, that it's all too much, each and every time.

Then she tells me, her eyes raised to the sky, that just inside the gate to Birkenau, they have built a pizza stand.

-A pizza stand. Pizza and hot dogs. Right there. Right there where they starved them to death.


On the bus ride, I can think of nothing but that I want my mother. I sleep a little, I think. I think I dream of vultures.