Things have definitely been a little rough these last couple of weeks. Many members of our household came down with some sort of bronchial infection that hit us hard. I spent almost a week in bed just sleeping and coughing. Luckily I was able to fight it off without having to go to the doctor and get on antibiotics. That is one of the great things with working for CouchSurfing. There aren’t many companies that encourage you to take as much time off as you need to feel better. Then again, there aren’t many companies that you live where you work where you play… you get the idea.

I was just beginning to feel better from the bronchial infection when a handy man, who was repairing a heater in our house, stole my iPhone along with another house member’s from our bedrooms. It was very frustrating because we confronted the man and when he didn’t admit to the act we called the police who were unable to do anything without any evidence. All we know is that he is the only outside person who was in our house the two hours that the iPhones went missing. Mostly, I am just tired of all my possessions getting stolen by unsavory outsiders, but, as my father told me, it is an important lesson. I guess you could say that I am experiencing a bit of culture shock coming from Alaska where I was able to leave my front door unlocked any time of the day to Berkeley, which has the highest rate of petty theft in all of the Bay Area.

To top it all off. I became violently ill last night after thinking that I was finally better. But this is a stomach thing that is completely unrelated to my bronchitis. I am lucky to have such a sweet boyfriend who loves me and does all my bidding. He drove all the way across town today to get me gourmet chicken noodle soup, saltine crackers and Popsicles. I am just so tired of being stuck in bed!

Instead of feeling sorry for myself, and to distract me from the mundane, I have decided to focus on all the positive things that are happening around me. It has been very exciting moving to Berkeley to volunteer full time with CouchSurfing. I am proud of myself to realize that I wasn’t happy in Alaska and having the courage to leave my family and friends and venture into the unknown.

I’m sure some of you are curious exactly what we do here at the CouchSurfing house. I’m sure that I have mentioned that I live with anywhere from 12 to 20 roommates at one time who are all full time team members of CouchSurfing. A group of our techies left last week to start a collective in Costa Rica so our house is finally at a reasonable level of human bodies.

The house itself is pretty amazing. It is a Julia Morgan and was built at the turn of the 20th century. It has a colorful history, including being a nunnery for many years (the priests still live next door). The only downside is the location. We are in the heart of UC Berkeley’s frat row. The noise in our neighborhood is astounding, especially late at night. We are looking for houses in the city to have a better location.

At the moment, our house is pretty homogeneous. The majority of us are from the US, but we are working on diversifying our household. A lovely woman named Erin just arrived from Canada as an admin specialist and we are expecting a woman from Brazil to arrive in the near future to be our Events Coordinator.

Being the house manager for so many people has proven challenging and super fun. I love how easily everybody in our house gets along. It definitely makes my life easier. I couldn’t do it without our kitchen manager, Jackie, who is irreplaceable. She is in charge of all the cooking and shopping. Did I mention that we have a house cook? Yeah, that would be Jackie. I eat better now than I ever have since moving away from home. She makes lunch and dinner five days a week and has weekends off. It’s an amazing feeling to sit down to family style dinner every night with 18 people. Our tables are always crowded and very chaotic.

I’m sure you are all wondering what I do as house manager here. Well, I supervise Jackie, which she makes very easy to do. I am responsible for three separate budgets, the house budget, the kitchen budget and excursions. So far my team and I are doing an excellent job with keeping expenses down and coming in under budget each month. CouchSurfing is a nonprofit that is completely supported through member donations so it is important to remember that we are here to serve our members and not spend frivolously. Mom, that’s right, I can keep a budget when it’s other people’s money!

Other than overseeing the kitchen I also keep a finger to the pulse of how team members are feeling and relating to living in such a unique situation. It’s great, I get to hang out and talk to my friends all day and it is all part of my job! I also make sure that the house keeps clean (yes mom!) and run weekly house meeting in which we discuss house issues, upcoming events and guests. I also have weekly meetings with my supervisor who was TTT, but now it’s Jim with the new organization structure that was put into effect. It’s kind of weird that my boyfriend is now my boss, but going better than I expected.

Of course, my job can be a lot of fun too. I get to organize events within our house. Yesterday we had an open house for all of the CS community to come and enjoy. We got some BBQ grills going and I made my famous pico de gallo. It was great opening our house to all the members that we are here to provide for. (Yes, Dad, I secured my laptop). We also have big parties on weekends. Our last big party was a sock puppet party. If you would like to see the invitation visit SockPuppetParty.com That’s my roommate, Andrew, singing in the bathroom and Cameron just happened to record a bit of it. This house is so funny!

We also have events just for our house which is great for bonding. The night that we decorated our sock puppets we had a Cuban theme. Jackie made amazing Cuban food and Jelena and I made a big batch of Mojitos. Right before Christmas Jelena was feeling homesick for Switzerland so she organized an entire evening of Samichlaus where we made breadmen and had a gift exchange.

I have also been trying to get out of the house more and experience the area surrounding us. Walked and I decided to go on a date and spend a Tuesday in San Francisco (another great reason to work for CouchSurfing). Our plan was to spend the day riding the historical cable cars all over the place and get off in every neighborhood. Unfortunately the cable car we jumped on made it half a block before every cable car in the city broke simultaneously. Apparently a cable came off the line and they were down for the day. Luckily it was a beautiful day out so we decided to do walking tour instead. It was great, we just wandered aimlessly and ended up hitting some pretty cool spots. China Town is a must see for any visitors. There are tons of shops with live animals that they will butcher right in front of you. We saw a lot of tubs full of live frogs and turtles. The produce is sitting out on the curb all nice and fresh. I decided early on that we should eat something in every neighborhood so we grabbed some dim sum from a tiny shop. Next thing I knew we were in Little Italy where we stopped at a nice cafe, Pinnochio, to soak up the sun and sip mimosas. It almost felt like we were in Italy as we sat outside watching passersby. We kept the drinking theme of our day going by walking down to Jack Kerouac’s bar where Walker announced that he was craving an awful sounding shot called a statutory grape. The bar tender had never heard of it so we had to google the ingredients: 2 ounces Southern Comfort, 1 ounce sour mix, 1 ounce grenadine and something else that I can’t remember. It wasn’t long after this that we hopped on the BART and met up with one of my favorite people here, Camtastic. We were on a mission to find cheap socks for the sock puppet party, but the line was so long at the discount store we lost interest and decided to find a bar instead. Fate was with us and we found the best dive bar ever! The drinks were ridiculously cheap and the bar tender, a complete asshole. But we loved it.

So I would say that my time down in the Bay Area has had its hits and misses. I am still glad I am here, but I need a break from the city life for a couple months. I have Costa Rica in my sights for April, which is keeping me sane for the moment. I’ll go down there to rest up for all the craziness that is going to be happening this summer. Jim’s family is having a huge reunion in New Mexico and this is my first year to attend Burning Man at the end of August. I can’t wait!