When couchsurfing goes horribly ... annoying

People tend to give you strange looks when you tell them you are going to stay with someone you don't even know. The premise is called couchsurfingand it's website suprisingly enough, couchsurfing.com. You sign up, tell the internet a little about yourself, and in a perfect world, you find a joint to stay at and everyone wins. Until yesterday, each and every one of my couchsurfing expierences have been amazing. Carol and Fred are fantastic and we hope to see them again, just as we are excited to see Kirsten and Alex in Germany. I still talk to Kirk on a regular basis but have only spent time with the guy for a collective 4 days. So much so that Colette jokes that Kirk and I are gay. She is just jealous. Anyways, we had posted a message on the Rome, Italy group requesting a place to stay. God forbid we spend money on lodging! A new member contacted us and said he would help us out. The only problem was that he lived 80 kilometeres to the south of Rome.

Colette and I were keen to the idea. It was only € 4.50 train ticket down there and it might be cool to see something off the beaten path. He agreed to pick us up from the train station and even said he had an extra room and bed for us. He almost seemed too nice and too accomedating in his e-mails and when we spoke to him on the phone.

So we showed up at about 6 p.m and he drove down to the train station about 15 minutes later to pick us up. He was a dead ringer for Woody Allen as far as looks go but he had the social skills of a lab rat. We talked to him long enough to go to bed. Even making it to 9 p.m was tough. I joked to Colette about how shitty it would have been to be killed that evening in our sleep and then have him wear our skin around the apartment the next morning. She wasn't amused. In all actuality, it may have been less painful then the mental anguish we suffered over the next day in a half.

We tried to make conversation with him but repeatedly he interupted us or bossed us around. The bus ride down to Napoli was excrutiating with him. The whole day was excruitiating. I feel like I can get along with about anyone but now I am beginnning to rethink that. Colette and I started conversations about her brother and my sister so he wouldn't be able to interupt us. He was the product of a adolecsence spent in front of the computer as the bags under his eyes showed it and his lack of conversation ettiquette or adeptness spoke it. He talked down to Colette and even went as far as to say he was racist in a shared cab with 2 Italian men and a Muslim man. Sadly, we didn't know enough Italian to seperate our physical affiliation with his prescence. Luckily, those guys were pretty cool and it would have been nice to have heard what they were saying because I am sure it was more interesting than what "Woody" had to offer.

Not all was lost though, we took a 45 minute boat ride to Capri, a small island off of the Italian coast. I nearly chunked from the sea sickness escpecially seeing the Asian women 10 feet away heave her lunch into a sack.

These little rigs were everywhere. I think they were 2 strokes because they all burned copious amounts of oil. Piggagio is the maker I believe.

A shot of the coast of Capri.