I’m about to enter one of the biggest contradictions of my life: the penny-pinching but money-bleeding phase. I’ll be living a much simpler lifestyle in New York than I currently have in Manila, but I’ll be spending about 10 times more than I usually spend once I start paying rent, etc. It’s a little dampening, but I’m hoping the gamble will be worth it.
In any case, I’m still headed to Germany in a week or two for a conference, and I’m planning to head to Amsterdam for a couple of days because opportunities to go to Europe are rare and I’d love to see the city again. When I visited in 2007, I stayed only for a day, so I wasn’t able to fully appreciate it. This should be a good time to go—a last hurrah before I leave for NYC.
But like I said, I’m on a budget. So I’ve been looking for a cheap hostel, and if not that, a willing host on CouchSurfing.org. So far, I’d been out of luck, but I’m hoping that something will turn up soon. If not… well, I’ll be saying hello to airport sleeping once more. Not fun, but I’m not afraid to do that, although I feel I’m getting a little old to be sleeping on airport benches with nothing but a bag as a pillow (I now have one of those neck pillows, which are actually very useful).
I like the idea of CouchSurfing. Nowadays, when it’s so hard to trust strangers, it’s nice to come across something that tries to get people to connect and restore their faith in others. I’ll wait for replies; even if I don’t get an offer to crash on the couch, I’m sure it’ll come in handy someday.
Wait, that's a different kind of couch-surfing
I’ve had a lot of success with couch-surfing – people are very nice and respectful and it goes a long way in reminding you that so many people in the world are good-hearted.