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I understand that this couchsurfing thing remains, to most of you, a mysterious (and downright insane) venture. So, as promised, allow me explain/defend the CS (see jargon key below) system.

Jargon

CS = couch surfing (the term itself is multivalent — it can mean the site, the idea, the action, the philosophy, etc.)
Surfing = to sleep at a host
Hosting = to host a surfer

Brief history

Some guy, before his trip to Iceland, realized he had nowhere to stay, and balked at paying for a hotel room. So in a flash of genius, he spammed 1500 university students; many responded, he had a great time, and couch surfing was born. (Read the slightly-more-edifying faq here.)

Mechanics

All users make a profile. (Here’s mine.) There are profile-esque things like fav. books and ‘types of people I enjoy,’ along with more CS-specific items like location and description of couch. Important: You don’t have to host in order to surf (but it definitely helps; see below). If you do have an available couch (or bed or floor or sleeping surface — it doesn’t literally have to be a couch) then you mark the couch’s ‘availability.’ The options are definitely, yes, maybe, no (these are pretty much an indication of your enthusiasm for surfers), traveling, and only coffee, which means you can’t offer a couch, but are open to the idea of meeting surfers and showing them around.

So, let’s say I want to go to Fiji. I’ll search for all the available couches, and message the hosts that look inviting and have the appropriate availability. (If they’re traveling or clearly don’t want surfers, then no dice.) You can also filter your search by the number of occupants your host can accommodate. There’s some etiquette involved, like no spamming with generic messages, and no persistent asking. Responses will depend on location and season and how far in advance you’re asking. There’s no obligation to host ever, and selection can be as arbitrary as the host likes. So, in this example, Fiji man agrees to host me. We agree on the precise days, and Mr. Fiji tells me how to find his house. Presto. Normal stays are 1-3 days, so I might have to do some logistical juggling to figure out accommodations for the entirety of my trip.

Safety Concerns

Okay, to many, CS seems like sending embossed invitations to rapists and murderers. But the system is remarkably effective and safe. (There are over a million members, with tens of thousands successful surfs every week.) First, there’s a verification system, where you can lock in your name and verify your address via credit card payment. This provides much more assurance than might be apparent: If I know that Ms. Ploni is really from France, then I’m much less concerned about her trekking all the way to New York just so she can steal my pet elephant or laptop. (The last log-in location is also automatically displayed.) I’m way more reluctant to take people from, say, Newark, than Denmark.

And then there’s the references. After every surf/host, everyone writes a quick review of their experience. Your profile, as well, is critical: the empty ones don’t get responses. They’re awfully suspicious. But the ones that are full and vibrant, with pictures and details, are way more comforting. There’s also a vouching system, in which only previously vouched-for people can vouch for others. It’s like a giant circle of trust.

Benefits

Obviously, the surfer gets a free sleeping space. But usually, the host is like an insider to a foreign country: favorite local spots, parties, tips, etc. And from my experience, everyone I’ve hosted has been a blast to hang out with. CS also provides fun little communities wherever you travel — there’s always get-togethers and the like, all around the world. As for romance, it’s much less than you’re thinking (/hoping), but it does happen. There are a number of couples I’ve come across that have met through their CS travails. Cute, eh?

I hope that clears things up. It’s definitely not for everyone, but it’s not nearly as insane as it initially seems. Feel free to check out their site. (The statistics page is mondo interesting.) Heck, do a mock search for a couch. I challenge you to find a place without CS-ers.

That’s it for Iceland. I’m home now, and the remainder of my summer (life?) is effectively sentenced to staring at rectangular screens. May God have mercy on my eyes/soul.

The trip home: uneventful. I was able to distinguish — with nearly 80% success — who from my flight spent time in Iceland, and who was just stopping over. And it wasn’t the souvenirs or lame shirts — it was whether or not I recognized them. Two people don’t spend any considerable time in Reykjavik without at least seeing each other.

It’s nice seeing ethnic diversity again, and even nicer not to have the water smell like egg fart. (Though the NY tap-water taste will take some adjusting to.) It seems I wasn’t missed a tremendous amount: three texts, two voice mail. The texts: a friend informing me that a very mysterious neighborhood building is actually — bummer alert — a garbage disposal; Orbitz wanted to let me know that my KEF-JFK flight is on time; and a friend had a baby boy. Voicemail: one friend, just seeing what’s up (I’m not as popular as this blog might have led you to believe); and Citibank, informing me of potential cc farud. I called the bank, and together with this disembodied voice that I now have a painful crush on, we went over last week’s charges. No fraud, it turns out; just Iceland mayhem. It was fun, her struggling to pronounce the location, me stuggling to remember where all that money went. It was like a quick n’ dirty recap.

It was, if these posts didn’t make it clear, glorious. I’m not sure if it was as much the strange Nordic adventures as it was getting off my rumpus and shaking things up a bit. Not life-changing, or mind-altering. Just geothermal goodness.

Some select pics to come, along with some further closing thoughts. And then, if I manage to keep this up, more (albeit smaller) adventures.

Friday night, just sleep. Our entertainment was limited to our increasingly hostile argument whether Y. could, in fact, taste the difference of our respective eye secretions. (Background info: Y. eats his disposable contact lenses every day, and claimed he could discern between his lenses and mine, which are the same make. No effing way.) We never did fully settle this one.

But Saturday was a ginormous festival, “Culture.” Crowded. It was mostly a whole bunch of amateur performers scattered throughout the city, with free coffee at select locations. (And yeah, in case you were wondering, that free coffee dictated our schedule. The caffiene crash was catastrophic.) The performances weren’t particularly good, but they were charming in the sense that local kids got the chance to show their chops to easily-impressed audiences. Lots of fried food everywhere. Obscene amounts of children. Dangling potatoes that we repeatedly bumped into. (I think it had something to do with a scavenger hunt…?) A group giving free hugs. A graffiti artist. Etc., etc.

The event ended with a big-name Icelandic concert, some totally respectable  fireworks — I’m inclined to disbelieve the “largest display in Europe” claim — and then, the mayhem of Reykjavik’s Saturday night. Thousands and thousands of very young, very blond people gather, drink, smash bottles, make ruckus, dance, drink, and smash more bottles. (The main downtown street is nearly carpeted in glass shards.) This goes on until well past 5am. A tip, for all those inspired to come here and seek love: All those pairs that look like siblings are in fact couples. The people we met were friendly — sometimes too much so: a male passerby ball-tapped me, because, I think, I flinched at a loud bang — and very intent on having fun. Three guys wearing velvet blazers made reparations for all anti-Semitic crimes — with tequila shots. A very tall Icelandic-French woman bought me Brennivín, which is Iceland’s signature drink. It tastes like sorrow and rage.

And we saw a kipah! (On a head, that is.) Upon further investigation (i.e., running up behind him and saying our very Jewish names very loudly, which elicited nothing, so we just tapped him on the back), we found out that he wasn’t Jewish. This 18 year old worked in a hotel, found the left-behind kipah, and now wears it when he goes out. He was very excited to meet two Jews who appreciated the coolness of the kipah. And his friend started singing Haveinu Shalom Aleichem (she was in a choir that apparently loves different ethnic music).

The next morning, the streets were totally spotless. No glass. No cigarette butts. No bottles or cups. No candy wrappers. No drunks. No vomit-piles. Like magic, Reykjavik returned to respectability.

They weren’t kidding when they said this place is homey. Quite literally, anywhere we go — cafes, tourist spots, geysers, car rental place — we bump into people we’ve met. And, every Icelander knows every other Icelander. No kidding. We wanted to go to a penis museum, but the 7-hour drive was judged too far. (But not by much.) Our new host (see below) had the curator as a Spanish teacher.

We’re now staying at Audur’s. It’s a gigantic step up from Sabrina’s: we have our own room, two beds, a host that’s not scarily insane, and no kids who practice with your toothbrush.  Only real detriment is the lack of a sink in the bathroom. (It’s awfully weird.) And while Audur and her boyfriend are certainly doing their utmost to make us feel comfortable, we’re just not yet ready to brush our teeth in the kitchen sink.

Audur and her boyfriend aren’t married. Neither, it seems, is anyone else. It’s just not a big deal here — some marry, many don’t, and children don’t really factor into the decision. (This seems to be a Scandinavian thing, though I’m not really qualified to say.)  But the ‘progressiveness’ — at least from a Western vantage — is somewhat selective. Vegetarianism is rare. Animal rights activism is spotty. There aren’t any blacks (seriously), and only a couple dozen of any minority, so racism isn’t much of a problem. (To qualify: we’ve just been asking locals, and mostly in Reykjavik, so I could very well have no idea what I’m talking about. (Qualification to qualification: 60% of the population lives in Reykjavik.)) But until recently, there were roughly ten thousand Polish immigrants in the country, doing menial labor & c. When everything went batshit, they stopped paying these Poles  in euros, and they rioted. We’ve seen a good deal of bitterness among the locals towards these Poles. (“Thieves” is a common invective hurled.)

Okay, ambassador meeting has been postponed until Monday. We were up early, rented a car, and did the Golden Circle, which sounds a lot more ominous/exciting than it is. We visited, in order: a scenic spot significant only for its geology — two teutonic plates meet, though you would never know unless you overheard the cute French guide next to you — and the fact that the Icelandic parliament used to be here — a thousand years ago; a geyser, which, I’m sorry, is boring (okay, we ran like scared little girls the first time it exploded); and a waterfall, which was actually stunning.

That waterfall — or the tourists at the waterfall, rather — bring me to my first short rant: the cameras. I fully support ‘recording the moment’ and/or the manufacture of genuine art viz. photography. But it’s taken way too far: many abandon the actual experience for its preservation. The site becomes, first and foremost, fodder for the lens, an instantly-saved and -stored digital phenomenon to be (ostensibly) enjoyed/cherished later. (Which never happens, or if it does, causes great pain and boredom to the poor souls subjected to the slideshow. And digital photography stretches those slide shows very near to infinite in length.) I once traveled with a friend, Uri, to Prague. We visited the museums, natch, but he never even saw the displays. All he did was snap photos of the displays. Something very real is lost when we’re substituting an encounter with nature/art/whatever for a pixellated static image of said encounter.

Whoa. Sorry for that. I’ll get back to strippers and puffin-impersonations. And, exciting news — The Reykjavik Grapevine is interested in an article. (If anyone reading this has any solid ideas/angles, do let me know.)

Things slowed down today. It was too windy for the puffin- or whale-watching tours, which were canceled. The people in the office did not appreciate our impromptu puffin impersonations, nor our elaborate pretend-the-stuffed-puffin-is-real act. I thought it was inspired. (Note: Y. has identified puffins as mammals. This is moronic.)

So we went to the local pool, where I rented the bathing suit I’ve always dreamed of owning but would never have the cajones to wear anywhere but here. Let’s just say those Icelanders were able to tell I was Jewish by an appendage other than my nose. It was cute and local, (i.e., the pool, not my bathing suits or contents), with a heated pool, and three hot tubs at various degrees. We challenged some local kids (all of whom, btw, look downright cherubic) to a game of Chicken on their gigantic hot dog-shaped flotation device. I don’t think they understood the rules, and kind of just rolled around. But social hierarchy traverses cultures: they instinctively knew to pick on Y.

Tsheila, that exotic dancer who’s supposed to go bowling with us, asked me to call her back later tonight, after she’s done work, abouts 2am. Bowling alleys, as far as I know, are not open at 2am. This, along with the fact that I do not live in a sitcom,  has caused me to suspect that she is expecting a customer, not a bowling partner. (Ain’t I quick?) I might pass on this one.

BUT — we passed by the Canadian embassy today, just as it was closing, and made an inquiry re a meeting with the ambassador. And he, the honorable Mr. Alan Bones (scroll down for bio), is available anytime tomorrow before noon. I’m boning up on all the important Iceland-Canada issues, which consist mostly of protecting various flora.

After the couch wreck that was Sabrina’s, we needed sleep. Badly. (And a shower; I hadn’t removed an article of clothing since Sunday night.) So we booked a nice hotel at a reasonable rate. We knew it was nice because there was very chic, very curvy, very leather black furniture in the lobby.

And then off to the Blue Lagoon, a spa of sorts, courtesy of nature. It’s a geothermal pool — the water, milky-colored, actually steams, and has something or other to do with lava. (Iceland, whose inhabitants all have impeccable English, is just horrid at those usually-handy explanatory signs that dot landmarks. The message I got: You want to know why the water is naturally hot? Tough noogies. Just go in, shut up, and try not to urinate.) It’s ultra hygeinic — we had our first shower of the trip — and the change room echoed with multi-language male banter. (Unsurprising revelation: Icelanders are not, by and large, circumcised. I’m cool with that, of course, but it’s problematic only insofar as I can’t really help but look. It’s endlessly fascinating to me, like a mythical or extremely rare animal, whose sighting is cause for excitement and even celebration. Y., too, noticed*, though he’s a future urologist, so I suppose he can bank on the ‘study’ excuse.)

The pool itself is relaxing; the water is hot and salty. It’s shallow throughout, so you just wade around, perhaps stop at the small island and purchase a slushie or a coke. Or go to the large barrels holding something suspiciously similar to shaving cream — though saltier — and slather yourself in it, exulting in its ostensibly supreme skin benefits. (My face burned something fierce, though I suppose that might be indicative of some skin-cleansing.) And the surrounding building is beautiful, especially the bathrooms. Actually, that’s been true throughout — this country’s bathrooms are the stuff of home design magazines. (And always thoroughly clean — perhaps the stuff of janitorial magazines as well.) Pooping, if I may be so blunt, has been a pleasure.

We had a small taste of the Reykjavik nightlife, though it’s awfully dead during the week. (The weekends, we’ve been told, are the ne plus ultra of debauchery. Looking forward.) It wasn’t entirely without incident: leaving aside the preambles, we have a bowling date tonight with a 6″1 Brazlian-Finnish exotic dancer named Tsheila. Details TK.

*I’d like to point out that these posts were/are written independently, without any sort of consultation between Y. and myself.  All inter-blog linking is done post facto. We’re in sync, clearly, especially when it comes to genitals.

My first hard-learned lesson of couchsurfing: the open-door hosts, the houses that literally overflow with hospitality, while enticing with the possibility of exciting, young, foreign peeps (/roommates), is actually a disaster-in-waiting.

Remember the L couch that we had ‘confirmed’? We arrived back at Sabrina’s only to find the couch made (though ’cleared’ would be more accurate) and occupied by a very stubborn-looking Ukrainian woman. Now, Y. and I were beyond exhausted, and any crankiness-infused confrontation would, I think, be justified. But we don’t know how to do that, so we deferred — though Ukrainian woman never even knew there was any issue of couch rights, or at least never let on — and had to make do with the less-than-four feet of space of remaining couch space. (I.e., the short leg of the L.)  And logistically, the only way this was going to work, with even a modicum of comfort and chance of sleep, was to spoon. So we did. (Related: We’ve spent somewhere around 15% of our interactions with locals and other tourists trying to convince them that we were, in fact, not a couple, appearances to the contrary be damned. Spooning on a couch short enough to necessitate fetal positions was not helping.) And thus arranged, we slept.* (Y.’s unsolicited advice: “I’m going to pretend you’re a girl, and you pretend that I’m a girl. It’s the only way this is going to work. Space-wise, of course. Here, put your arm around me.”)

Now, a little on Reykjavik.

We joined a walking tour yesterday, led by “modern-day viking” Jonas. And he was great (aside from the extraordinarily insensitive and sexist quips, which were, in all honesty, pretty funny). He twisted the history, “economical” crisis, religion, culture, etc. into one very engaging narrative. Most of the information is readily acessible to anyone who particularly cares, so I’ll skip to what I consider the really salient points of the tour: The Icelandic, it seems, are going through an identity crisis of sorts. (My observation, not Jonas’s.) They’re historically a stubborn and proud people — isolation and geography and astonishing industriousness all, I imagine, play a role — and this collapse (don’t pay heed to any sugarcoated terms) is humbling. The numbers Jonas tossed around were mind-numbing: in debt to the tune of 260% of GDP; 50% of homes facing foreclosure – and values have only dropped 20%, primed to further plummet; 50-70% of businesses facing bankruptcy; 10% of the population’s already left, and that number is set to skyrocket. But the people are “pretending”, as Jonas puts it, that nothing’s happened, at least in day-to-day life. No local I spoke to (and there’s been loads) seemed at all stressed or worried; they’re irritated, really. Severe dependence — on the IMF, on debtors, on the gov’t — is not something they’re used to, or enjoy. “I’m not sure what Iceland is anymore,” a local musician told me. He’s quitting the band and moving to Geneva next week.

Jonas wonderfully illustrated this dichotomy when he boasted of Iceland’s safety, how single women can hitchhike worry-free, and moms can dine in a restaurant while their baby waits outside, in the stroller, unaccompanied. But literally the stop before, he spoke of the unprecedented violence stemming from financial frustration: burning Land Rovers, axe attacks, gun brandishing in banks, no vacancies in the jails. He even said a civil war could be coming, and suggested that it might not be such a bad thing; it’d be a kind of political exfoliation.

Civil war + baby outside? This place is schizo.

*Y. has his own, mostly compatible version of last night’s events. Please recall, however, that he is short and highly suspectible to hyperbole and truth-bending. I will comment/correct when I have the opportunity.

This morning, after getting thrown out of the bus station – albeit without the slightest bit of malice; you´d think it was a routine chore for the security guards – we wandered off, ate breakfast, and headed back to Sabrina´s. Knocked, rung the doorbell: nothing. So we let ourselves in (again).

I won´t bore you with details, but we finally, like a mensch, met our hostess and some of the other guests. And here´s my present brain-itch: Why is Sabrina doing this, i.e., letting her house be overrun with nice but nonetheless imposing strangers? She lives in an astonishing mess; her house is reminiscent of Jeremy´s room in the Zits comic strip. There are  two kids, whose father lives elsewhere. And she doesn´t seem to be very interested in our lives or stories or even us.  The rooms upstairs she rents out for about $25/night, and that´s understandable. But her living room, which is directly attached to her kitchen, and is separated from her room – which she shares with the kids — by a flimsy and oft-open door, is a perpetual hostel. I don´t get it.* At all. But we think we´re confirmed for the L couch in the corner, while a friendly Italian couple gets the futon. Y.: “If they start having sex, we´re making sex noises. I don´t care.”

*Many don´t get even the basic concept and mechanics – not to mention the address of safety concerns -  of couchsurfing. But it is, for the most part, rational and really fun. I´ll fully explain/defend in a subsequent post, when I´ve had more sleep, when my afternoon nap wasn´t interrupted by a Icelandic kid chain-sucking lollipops waiting to watch some program featuring a parrot named Maggie.

PACKING LIST UPDATE: It´s icy-testicle cold. I´ve buckled and bought a hat.

In Iceland. The flight/journey was uneventful, despite Y.’s potentially problematic shirt – a black tee with some intense-looking Arabic corporate slogan. (Coke? Probably.)

There’s a tendency for eager young folk like myself to describe their trips in a phenomenally reductive manner, e.g., India: Poverty!, or China: Populous! (Those might be interchangeable; France: Foreign! is probably a better e.g.) I’m no going to do that even though Icelandic women, at least thus far, are a tempting group to stereotype.

Now, how’d this couchsurfing work out?

Weeeellll…. We arrived late, and after buying our (mandatory) guest gift of two cartons of reds for our to-be hostess Sabrina, we hopped on the Reykjavik-bound bus. We were expecting a Jerusalem-y downtown, like a really concentrated spot of happening. Nope: just a lonely gas station on the edge of a hilly, residential neighborhood. We got a map from the woman behind the counter – everyone’s been enormously helpful thus far – and found Sabrina’s street, about a ten minute walk.

We found her green house alright. But the lights were off, and we weren’t about to ring the bell. So, after psyching ourselves up, we simply walked inside, justifying our blatant trespassing by our 7000 krona gift. We could see, thanks to the light from the bathroom-cum-laundry room, which was comfortably messy. We tried the only other door on that floor – a bed, which is good, but with someone in it, which is bad. And the knee that we glimpsed looked like a male’s, which is worse. So after a feverish, whispered debate, we decided to investigate upstairs. (She must be used to this, right? She’s hosted scores of couchsurfers!) We removed our shoes – for stealth, obviously – and gingerly made our way up, trying to avoid those inevitable stair creaks.

Upstairs, in our socks, we found three doors. Sabrina lives with her boyfriend, so that’s one. He has a daughter, so that’s two. And while 1/3 ain’t bad odds, we hightailed it. (Pics of the escapade TK.)

We’re spending the night on the upper floor of the tiny bus station, which has a perfectly comfortable armchair and sofa. I imagine it’s a makeshift employee lounge. Y.’s asleep. Little guy…

And oh, we met Adam and Eva (no joke) who’ve promised us a killer Reykjavik weekend. Stay tuned.

For my 7-day trip to Iceland, I’m packing:

• three pairs of undergarments / socks
• a sweater
• a button down shirt
• my pet elephant, Husky
• a t-shirt
• electronics: camera, voice recorder
• contact lenses
• Borges’s “Labyrinth”

That’s it. This is either a masterful display of packing prowess, or one very expensive Icelandic mistake.

Oh, and we have to honor our first CS (=couchsurfing) host’s request:

a big favour can u bring 2 cartoon of malboro red (u are allow one cartoon each person so if u dont smoke!!!)

Mmmm… not cool.