Couch surfing in Leiden

So Friday October 8th my friend Madison and I went to Leiden (Netherlands) for our first couch surfing experience. Couch surfing is absolutley free and you literally "couch surf" or stay with people for free. Sometimes you have a couch to crash on, sometimes a bed, sometimes your own spare bedroom - its however the host sets it up. Sometimes it is just a place to stay, and sometimes the host will show you around, be your tour guide and kind of hang out with you while you are in that particular city. Couch surfing is WORLD WIDE and I met people there who actually couch surfed all through America as well. You go through the couch surfing website and put up a profile and after you stay with people they reference you, and you can see the references of the hosts as well. We stayed in Leiden with Tommy who is Dutch, though he speaks English, German and Norweign as well. He also knows some French and is learning Russian. He speaks English better than anyone! His friend said that he truly is a linguist and catches on really fast, and he said his skill lies in the pronunciation aspect because he is so good! You would never ever guess that he was Dutch by the way he talks. We ate dinner at his house the first night for only 2 Euros. A girl named Lauren cooked for us, she is majoring in International Relations and is going to school in Leiden & she is 30 from the O.C. (Cali). It was fun getting to know her and Tommy! Lauren has lived in a lot of other places like Thialand, France, and she even taught English in North Korea. She's been all over. Her family now moved out of Cali and live in Boise, Idaho. They also have a "permanent" couch surfer staying with them - his name is Pete and is from Hungary. He speaks Dutch and English as well. Tommy has couch surfed over 60 times and has had over 100 people stay with him - a lot of first timers!

The first night we hung out, got to know each other and had dinner (as well as watched Inglorious Basterds on their HUGE projector). There were also two other couch surfers staying there, one from Portland (who was half Canadian) and one from Santa Cruz, CA. The next day (Saturday) we walked around the whole city and also went to the Farmers Market. It was absolutley beautiful outside and Tommy was our "tour guide". We checked out a lot of places and had a great time in Leiden.

Also on Saturday, Tommy's couch surfer friend Marina came to spend the night for a few nights. She grew up in Sweden and just spent three months in Africa! She started in Morocco and worked her way around - she is a hitch hiker. Tommy and her have hitch-hiked for a while now and we learned a lot about this aspect and how it is in Europe. Totally a new concept to me and definitley interesting. She had a lot to say about Africa (as she JUST got back) and also couch surfing and hitch-hiking in general. She plans to go back home to Sweden and then go to New Zealand as well. We talked a lot about Moroccans and what she thought about the country, as well as Africa in general as she met women who worked in the sex trade and talked a lot about the drugs she saw there too. A lot different there then in Europe and the US.

Leiden is a prettier city than Arnhem in my opinion. The canals were great and there were a few historical markers we came across as well. I did see lots of wind-mills too! I'm glad I did couch surfing because I met so many new people and it was nice to get out of Honigkamp and Arnhem for a weekend. We also went to a bar the first night and has the "beer" talk with Tommy as he said US beer is only about 3% alcohol content and in the Netherlands it is like 6 or 7% (sometimes higher).

Tommy also has a money tree in his house! I took pictures of it, and it literally has money from all over, and coins in the bottom of the plant too from all over. It was cool to look at the different currency and especially the Canadian dollar! I had no idea it looked very similar to the Euro! Tommy "claims" the tree could be worth HUNDREDS some day because it is a "work of art" > I totally agree!



Here are waffles and stroopwafels at the market we went to on Saturday morning. I definitley had a stroopwafel for breakfast :) Delicious!


Leiden canals at night


The money tree! Paper from AAALLLL over the world . . .



You can see here that on different buildings throughout the city there are little "sayings" >> Too bad I couldn't read it


Being in Europe (Especially the Netherlands) makes you want to go boating/sailing every day! The canals are beautiful on a sunny day and the boats are so fun to look at.


Windmills are all over the city, of course.


'Dispicable Me' was featured at the main theatre in the city, I got a picture with the star of it!!


This is the view off the balcony of where we couch surfed at. They were right in the city by all the shops - the view was awesome!


My Sunday morning coffee and pancake :)
YUMMY!