An Endless Midsummer's Night

Look at me, blogging on the road. Now, had I been able to do this while I was on my grand European Tour I might not be posting about it fifteen months later. But then again, the "road" I'm on only involves a measly three cities and five days, rather than six weeks and eight countries; more importantly I have my laptop on hand, some spare time, and fifteen months ago I was too busy making the most extraordinary memories of a lifetime to be worrying about blogging. Better yet, as I've said before, getting to relive those fantastical moments is the best part of writing. So here, for your enjoyment and my reminiscent mind, is country number six: Sweden. 

We arrived at a dinky airport on the periphery of Stockholm on the 21st of June, the Summer Solstice, and date of the Swedish Midsummer celebration.

Anyone who knows my best friends and I well will not find it surprising that at my adamant demand we flew nearly a thousand miles to partake in a foreign holiday, mostly because you get to make flower crowns. Anyone who doesn't know us may call us a little crazy, which we are, so that's fair. 

Couchsurfing: Switzerland Edition

Brooke, Lindsey, and I have all been asked more than once how we possibly afforded our Euro-adventure. We had to be pretty frugal. There was a lot of grocery store trips (nothing is cheaper than pasta), food splitting (or "rationing" as we called it), picking and choosing of what "splurge" sites we would pay to see, and just general attempts at being thrifty. However, nothing saved us more money than Couchsurfing.com. 

For those of you who haven't heard of this webpage, it's basically what it sounds like, except sometimes you get a couch, sometimes you get a bed, sometimes you get a futon, sometimes you get a floor, sometimes you'll take whatever you can get. Essentially you make a profile and then request to stay in strangers' homes.

Now the appropriate and usual reaction to this idea is "STRANGER DANGER!!" While this is a practical concern, we had a really great and safe experience with the whole thing. Profiles are linked to reviews from other surfers and that's largely how we chose who we stayed with. The people you request to stay with must also approve you, and you can talk with them prior to your visit. 

To be fair, there is a decent part of this that is trusting your gut. I am sure that not every Couchsurfer is a safe and hospitable new friend. There are creepers everywhere, but just as well, there are wonderful people everywhere. We tried to be as safe as possible, like I said, trusting other surfers' reviews and especially steering towards people with a large quantity of positive comments. 

While I had my first Couchsurfing experience on my trip to England, and Brooke & Lindsey had their's in Florence (while I was off galavanting in Southern Spain), we had our first joint experience in Geneva, Switzerland.