Daring to do something different
Aug. 12th, 2009 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaSome people would say that I’ve got a well developed sense of adventure, since I pick up and move, sometimes to a totally new country, every few years. Some people, who see me only at SCA related gatherings, would say that I’m a confidant person who doesn’t suffer from any form of shyness. Sometimes, they would be correct. However, I am also one who finds it easy to stay home and read or browse the internet or accomplish useful task instead of going out and doing things with people, if there isn’t an SCA event/practice/meeting to draw me out.
Recently![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clovis_t introduced me to the couchsurfing web page, which is a way for people who wish to travel on a budget find free couches to sleep on at their destination, and for people who wish to meet people from interesting places to open up their homes to host guests. This sounded good to me. I’ve been doing that within the SCA since I was in high school, but this organization would let me do it in countries where there isn’t much, if any SCA presence. So I signed up. I’ve got some couchsurfers from Poland planing to stay with me when they come to Milan next week, and I’ve been looking for couches in the Alps so that I can head out for an adventure this weekend.
Much to my surprise, the web page isn’t just about meeting the people with whom one is staying, or hosting, but there is a strong local community network as well. I joined the Milano group and have been receiving e-mails of the postings there--it has already proved to be a valuable resource in terms of learning where to find things in the city. This weekend there was a post saying that a bunch of local couchsurfers, some of whom have couchsurfing guests at the moment, were going to meet (as they often do) on Tuesday evening at a café. So I decided to join them, and asked for the address of the café.
It is located on the far end of the park next to the Castle in the city center, so I guessed that I should probably give myself 30 minutes to an hour to find it. Indeed, the trip in took a full 40 minutes, but that was more because I got off the Metro a couple of stations early when I misread the sign at the station. When I emerged from the underground station I wasn’t having any luck equating the street signs with the map, so I asked a woman waiting at a tram stop where I was and which direction I should walk. When she pointed out our location on my map, I realized my error in the station (and why I was having such a hard time locating myself. When I told her were I was heading she recommended that I take the tram she was about to take. Since my metro ticket is good for 75 minutes of public transit, I decided that I may as well.
This got me to the café a little late compared to the advertised 19:30 start time. Like many cafés in Milan, this one has a bunch of outside tables, and there were small groups sitting at most of them, but there was also one large clump of tables, pulled together in a horseshoe shape, at which there were only about 5 people seated, though there was room for at least 20 at the table. I asked, and sure enough, I’d guessed correctly, these were the couchsurfers. I joined them at one edge of the table and almost imdeadilty a few others arrived and sat opposite of me. The conversation at our end of the table was completely in English, which made it easy for me (indeed, the Milano group’s rule for posting to the list is that all posts must be in English, I guess because it is a fairly common language, and makes it easier for visitors from other countries to understand the posts).
When I first sat down I was a little uncomfortable--most of the people who arrived before I did were smoking, as were people at the other tables, and I didn’t know anyone, and wasn’t certain I wanted to know any of them. So I spoke sternly to myself, got out my sewing project, and told myself that I had to give the group a chance--no leaving until I’d at least finished the seam in progress. That was when the new people arrived; none of them smoked, so it was just the people a bit further away who were stinking up the place. I actually very much enjoyed the conversations.
The dark haired girl across from me spend a year in Hong Kong as an exchange student when she was young, where she mostly wound up practicing the English she already knew to communicate with people, since she never did develop her ear well enough to distinguish the tones which are so essential for meaning in Chinese, though she tried (she was actually disappointed to have learned so little of that language while there--she chose Asia rather than the US for her exchange as she already spoke English and wanted to learn a new language).
The light haired girl across the way said that her English really improved when she hosted a couple of Australians for a full month and a half (unusual--many couch surfers are not willing to host for more than a few days in a row). The man next to her was proud to tell us that he is actually from Milan--that so many of the people you meet living in this city actually come from somewhere to the south of Italy. His English was very good--he says that he teaches English to Korean students here in Milan. The man to my right wasn’t as fluent, nor as talkative, but his friend (the English teacher) told us how in one of their “little soccer” (don’t ask me to spell the Italian word for it, that is the translations he gave us—but it involves teams of only five people) the man to my right succeeded in scoring a goal by hitting the ball with his shoulder.
One of the other topics of conversation was the dangers of Milan (exposed by the one who is proud to be from here), particularly posed by immigrants from elsewhere who haven’t found work but instead prey upon tourists. This cheery topic, combined with the thickening of the smoke cloud, and the increase of people at the café (both at our table and at the other tables) making it difficult to hear the people I was closest to prompted me to leave early, while it was still daylight. After all, I still needed to find the correct train station, and while I knew where it was on the map, I decided that light would be a good thing for the journey home alone. So I bid them good night and set on my way at 20:40. 15 minutes walk to the station, 19 minutes on the train (which arrived just after I got to the platform), and 14 minutes walk home. I didn’t see anything that seemed remotely dangerous on the journey home. However, I think that I will mostly save these Tuesday evening gatherings for weeks when I’m hosting couch surfers, so that I’ve got someone to do the trip with me, so that I don’t feel compelled to leave before dark. Especially as soon darkness will fall sooner than it does now.
Recently
clovis_t introduced me to the couchsurfing web page, which is a way for people who wish to travel on a budget find free couches to sleep on at their destination, and for people who wish to meet people from interesting places to open up their homes to host guests. This sounded good to me. I’ve been doing that within the SCA since I was in high school, but this organization would let me do it in countries where there isn’t much, if any SCA presence. So I signed up. I’ve got some couchsurfers from Poland planing to stay with me when they come to Milan next week, and I’ve been looking for couches in the Alps so that I can head out for an adventure this weekend. Much to my surprise, the web page isn’t just about meeting the people with whom one is staying, or hosting, but there is a strong local community network as well. I joined the Milano group and have been receiving e-mails of the postings there--it has already proved to be a valuable resource in terms of learning where to find things in the city. This weekend there was a post saying that a bunch of local couchsurfers, some of whom have couchsurfing guests at the moment, were going to meet (as they often do) on Tuesday evening at a café. So I decided to join them, and asked for the address of the café.
It is located on the far end of the park next to the Castle in the city center, so I guessed that I should probably give myself 30 minutes to an hour to find it. Indeed, the trip in took a full 40 minutes, but that was more because I got off the Metro a couple of stations early when I misread the sign at the station. When I emerged from the underground station I wasn’t having any luck equating the street signs with the map, so I asked a woman waiting at a tram stop where I was and which direction I should walk. When she pointed out our location on my map, I realized my error in the station (and why I was having such a hard time locating myself. When I told her were I was heading she recommended that I take the tram she was about to take. Since my metro ticket is good for 75 minutes of public transit, I decided that I may as well.
This got me to the café a little late compared to the advertised 19:30 start time. Like many cafés in Milan, this one has a bunch of outside tables, and there were small groups sitting at most of them, but there was also one large clump of tables, pulled together in a horseshoe shape, at which there were only about 5 people seated, though there was room for at least 20 at the table. I asked, and sure enough, I’d guessed correctly, these were the couchsurfers. I joined them at one edge of the table and almost imdeadilty a few others arrived and sat opposite of me. The conversation at our end of the table was completely in English, which made it easy for me (indeed, the Milano group’s rule for posting to the list is that all posts must be in English, I guess because it is a fairly common language, and makes it easier for visitors from other countries to understand the posts).
When I first sat down I was a little uncomfortable--most of the people who arrived before I did were smoking, as were people at the other tables, and I didn’t know anyone, and wasn’t certain I wanted to know any of them. So I spoke sternly to myself, got out my sewing project, and told myself that I had to give the group a chance--no leaving until I’d at least finished the seam in progress. That was when the new people arrived; none of them smoked, so it was just the people a bit further away who were stinking up the place. I actually very much enjoyed the conversations.
The dark haired girl across from me spend a year in Hong Kong as an exchange student when she was young, where she mostly wound up practicing the English she already knew to communicate with people, since she never did develop her ear well enough to distinguish the tones which are so essential for meaning in Chinese, though she tried (she was actually disappointed to have learned so little of that language while there--she chose Asia rather than the US for her exchange as she already spoke English and wanted to learn a new language).
The light haired girl across the way said that her English really improved when she hosted a couple of Australians for a full month and a half (unusual--many couch surfers are not willing to host for more than a few days in a row). The man next to her was proud to tell us that he is actually from Milan--that so many of the people you meet living in this city actually come from somewhere to the south of Italy. His English was very good--he says that he teaches English to Korean students here in Milan. The man to my right wasn’t as fluent, nor as talkative, but his friend (the English teacher) told us how in one of their “little soccer” (don’t ask me to spell the Italian word for it, that is the translations he gave us—but it involves teams of only five people) the man to my right succeeded in scoring a goal by hitting the ball with his shoulder.
One of the other topics of conversation was the dangers of Milan (exposed by the one who is proud to be from here), particularly posed by immigrants from elsewhere who haven’t found work but instead prey upon tourists. This cheery topic, combined with the thickening of the smoke cloud, and the increase of people at the café (both at our table and at the other tables) making it difficult to hear the people I was closest to prompted me to leave early, while it was still daylight. After all, I still needed to find the correct train station, and while I knew where it was on the map, I decided that light would be a good thing for the journey home alone. So I bid them good night and set on my way at 20:40. 15 minutes walk to the station, 19 minutes on the train (which arrived just after I got to the platform), and 14 minutes walk home. I didn’t see anything that seemed remotely dangerous on the journey home. However, I think that I will mostly save these Tuesday evening gatherings for weeks when I’m hosting couch surfers, so that I’ve got someone to do the trip with me, so that I don’t feel compelled to leave before dark. Especially as soon darkness will fall sooner than it does now.
