Couchsurfing?

As many of you know my girlfriend and I have recently moved from Manchester to Bournemouth, leaving much of what we know behind. Neither of us are the most outgoing type of person, so making new friends is a bit difficult. Sure, you meet people at work and maybe have a few beers with them, but you I think you also need another separate group of friends. One where you don’t “talk shop” all the time. Realising this, I decided to join couchsurfing which is basically a way for people to share spare beds or couches across the world. Members vouch for each other so there is a rating system of sorts. The general response to the site is that it “sounds dodgy”. I suppose it does, relying on the generosity of strangers is never easy. Perhaps we are all too suspicious of each other. Anyway, my brother Terry and his wife Mia used this site for much of their travels across the world, to meet people, find places to sleep, and make the most of their journey. I’m purely using it for social gatherings, though it may come in handy in the future. We went out last week for a few beers in the pub and about 20 people turned up, all of them seemed really nice, and all from different parts of the planet with the lingua franca being English of course. It’s a brilliant website and we hope to make a lot of friends out of it, and if not, at least have a good time and learn something about people and their cultures.

Yesterday we went on a nice long walk to Old Harry’s Rocks which is beautiful. There were three English people, a Pole, two Lithuanians and a South Korean. An eclectic mix of people but all really nice. Had a great time and I hope that we can all find something to do in the near future.