Alain Funel from New Caledonia

I had 2 weeks off work and which country should I visit? Preferably something with a different culture and language. The holiday was planned on quite a short term and I had only 4 days to look for a host. During this period I needed to turn down a nice request from nice people from Ireland. After browsing the net, I decided to write to 4 hosts and 3 hosts said yes. Woohoo........

Air Calin or Air Caledonia started late and I arrived at 8 pm. I was looking for my first host Alain Funel and he was already waiting at the airport. Normally I don't ask people to pick me up but with the poorly organised public transportation in New Caledonia, I was more than happy to accept his offer to pick me up. He was shorter than I expected but I have been realy impressed by his warmhearted kindness. We arrived at his house and greeted by his girlfriend Yolande and the 2 students from Vanuatu.

We had a lovely meal and again this was not anything that I expected. Fried manioc with prawns. Alain was my only host who grew up in New Caledonia but born elsewhere. All my next hosts immigrated to New Caledonia from metropolitan France. Alain took me to his office which was in the center of Noumea, the capital city of New Caledonia. He gave me the address of a lady who worked for the tourism office and I noticed that he knew a lot of people. We went to the night fair showing traces of the original indigeneous culture of New Caledonia. It really felt that I was not a tourist and his friends treated me exactly like a local.

Alain had time for me after work and he showed me around the city in his car. We went to a cava bar to sample cava, a typical drink from Vanuatu. I do know that the cava cava plant contains analgesia which can be effective for arthritis. The cava bar is a Vanuatuan tradition where people sit there in the dark cave, drink cava and socialise. Alain warned me already that it could become heavy and make you tired. I tried them and you could spit it somewhere in case you hated it.

Walking through Noumea gave me a lot of insight into the New Caledonian culture and the very subtle conflicts between the ethnic groups. Not only that my French language improved but I could also learn about the diversity of the various ethnic groups. Very soon I realised that I needed to walk a very fine line in order not to offend any group. Indigenous people spit on the ground which was something I needed to get used to. Time passed by very quickly and it was about time to say a temporary goodbye to Alain to continue my travels to the New Caledonian bush. Public transportation especially the long distance buses are a very special topic in which I'll talk in the next article.

My first guest

Among the numerous copy paste requests there was one American guy, Nico Ackermann, who immediately caught my attention. His profile was full of guests and friends who talked about him as a warmhearted person whose couch was always there for you to crash on when you feel emotionally down. At that time I had my finger on the "Delete" button straight away and was not aware that it reflected back on the percentage of how many requests I had replied too. One of the Sydney hosts has taught me to prepare an automated response for those who don't bother to read my profile. Niko's request showed a few personal comments which were closely related to the information in my profile. He wrote that he could speak a bit of German to prepare me for going back to Germany. Of course he didn't know that I originally grew up in Sydney.

Niko arrived on the same day as I invited my friends Brendon and Paul to watch Queen Victoria cruise ship to enter Sydney Harbour. He was as nice as his request but I simply felt weird to let a stranger, no matter how nice he was sleep in my flat. Brendon and Paul were very surprised that Niko was not a friend but just a stranger I "picked up" from the internet. I didn't tell them about Couchsurfing and they wondered what was in there for me that I wanted to host a total stranger.

Niko was a good guest and wonderful character but at that time I thought I would prefer to meet people first, invite them for dinner or coffee at my wonderful apartment with Sydney Harbour view but don't let them stay overnight. The idea that strangers save money for their travels at my expense didn't make me feel good.

Arriving in Sydney

Mainz is not the most popular destination for travellers or to be put more accurately: Despite being a hidden tourist gem embedded in magnificent mountain and river Rhine scenery, Mainz is unknown among international travellers. Most travellers have no idea that Mainz is located just as far from Frankfurt International Airport as from Frankfurt city. This results in Frankfurt being swamped with requests and Mainz just growing with new members related to the very few requests

I signed up for Couchsurfing late October 2007 before I left Germany for Australia n late December. My first experience after arriving in Sydney was not the most positive one because of a greedy landlady. I was house hunting in Sydney at the busiest peak season time which I found very stressful. This was a time where searching for couches may become extremely difficult. Adam Stone, the Sydney ambassador at that time was so friendly and offered me to store my bags. He was one of my CS(Couchsurfing)first contacts in Sydney and I felt that it was a warm and welcoming group.

I was a total newbie in CS(Couchsurfing) matters, had absolutely no idea how to distinguish a copy paste from a personal one. I even didn't realise that this was common practice and not reading profiles was a daily routine. Some copy pasted emails were really nicely written and touching my heart, so it just took me some time to understand this special CS culture.

My first event that I organised for CS Sydney was my birthday party starting from New Year's Eve 2007. My birthday was exactly on New Year's Day, so the first guests arrived on NYE at 2 pm. I made great friends but added most of them on Facebook. Nearly everyone was pleasant and I had only 3 girls who showed me so little respect and broke my things. They were so disrespectful that I threw them out on the spot and they were still thick-skinned enough to stay until the Fireworks. My location just in front of the Sydney Harbour was another reason why I received so many couch requests until I was unable to distinguish the copy paste and freeloaders from the prospective good guests.

The Sydneysiders were experienced in Couchsurfing and taught me many tricks. I had learnt how to put a keyword on my profile to find out whether they had read my profile or not. I was still that naive that I thought people would respect this and start to either avoid or write personalised requests. The up to 50 copy paste requests per day continued to spam my inbox and I just realised by then that some of them looked for cities only and didn't bother to read profiles. The other hosts in Sydney kept teaching me and helped me how to handle these types of requests.

I started to become disillusioned and the Sydneysiders gave me the advice to shut down my couch for some time to keep myself sane and maintain my positive attitude towards CS(Couchsurfing). At the same time I experienced a cockroach invasion and I needed to negotiate extermination with my landlord. A good excuse not to host for the time being!!! However, I started to organise and attend many meetings, made some friends and enjoyed my life with CS in Sydney. CS offers multiple opportunities where I think that this is rather an offline community where online communication takes place to support our meetings, travelling, hosting and surfing activities.
So far I decided to stay on Couchsurfing and enjoy the social features of CS rather than hospitality exchange.