Ambassadorship and hosting in Mainz

I came back to Mainz in July 2008. What a difference to Singapore and Sydney! Mainz is not a well-known international surfer destination, has many good couches and continues to grow at a reasonably fast pace. This means that it is actually an interesting place for surfers because of the many hosts compared to the few requests. Dennis has left Mainz for a 4-year-trip around the world and his job has been taken over by 4 people. I tried to organise and attend meetings exactly like in Sydney and decided to apply for ambassadorship.

This was also the time that I could experience how ugly and unreasonable groups like Brainstorming and similar CS internet groups were. I was randomly attacked on these groups with totally unfactual comments. After 4 weeks, finally I have been approved as city ambassador for Mainz. The inaugural meeting after I received the flag was a Federweise and Zwiebelkuchen(New wine and onion cake) outdoor event and we were lucky to have great weather.

How could I start networking without CS taking over my life? There was a Couchsurfing Brunch in Frankfurt which I attended and of course the ambassador meeting in Langen near Frankfurt. I found it very helpful and given a lot of tips what an ambassador should do or not do. The importance of the TOU(Terms of Use) for ambassadors was greatly explained to the new ambassadors. Quite a few tips of what an ambassador could organise to keep the community going.


Mark Burban from Melbourne has been my first guest after I left Australia and he has now become city ambassador for Melbourne. In November I organised a restaurant night in a Vietnamese restaurant followed by a pre-Christmas cookies potluck in my house. It was great fun, I made cookies, others brought various types of coffee and natural sweeteners, great conversations and new friends. Even Gary Weir from Heidelberg came down especially for my potluck. I was happy to host him but he preferred to drive home to Heidelberg.

My second guest in Mainz was Ellen from Taiwan(photo,left, right me) who was still studying in Maastricht, Netherlands. She wrote to me 3 weeks in advance and showed very clearly that she was interested in German culture and a traditional Christmas. Well, I liked this rather than last minute requests because I could plan things well ahead. Our Christmas was certainly not typical German but rather improvised.

My daughter Angela refused to sing German Carols under the tree and the tree was tiny and artificial. Before my big trip I really didn't feel like planting a huge fir tree in the garden. The only "typical" German tradition was the presents given on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. We had the typical German goose roast and home-made Plätzchen or cookies.

The days before Christmas Day were very busy for me as I still needed to work. Bettina who also came to my pre-Xmas potluck offered to show Ellen around. I invited Collin Black to join our Christmas parties too. I met Collin on the Christmas Market in Mainz as he was going to live in Wiesbaden for 2 years. He was unhappy that he had to spend Christmas and NYE without his family, so I decided to invite him not only for Christmas but also for New Year's Day.

The year 2008 was a great start into my ambassadorship and hosting in Mainz.