Wow! I need to write more often. So much has happened this spring!

Where to begin? Well, I have been able to get out of town a couple times this spring. The first was to fly up to Portland to visit my good friend Cameron who was my first college roommate ever. We lived together at Alaska Pacific University and have remained friends ever since.

Cam, me and the Big Tree

Cameron is going to school in Portland and wanted to do something fun for spring break so I flew up to Portland for a couple days and then we drove down to San Francisco together. On the way down we stopped at a great lighthouse and got a private tour from the light house keeper who was a nice old fellow with a full gray beard. Exactly how you would imagine a light house keeper. We spent a night in Arcata with a pair of cool CouchSurfers named Jemma and Pat. Jemma works for CASA, an advocacy program for foster children. It was interesting to listen to her stories and how she helps these poor kids who get caught in the system.

Once we arrived in Berkeley Cameron was a little overwhelmed with the chaos of our house, but we had a good time exploring San Francisco together and we even drove to Big Sur for the day, which was beautiful. Luckily the weather was nice the whole time she was here and it wasn’t until she left that it started to rain.

CouchSurfing is moving its international headquarters (BaseCamp) to the Mission in San Francisco. Mandy, one of our volunteers, worked day and night to find a great property in the perfect neighborhood. We are moving April 25th, which has made life for me a little hectic trying to organize such a large move and get all the supplies we need. I know that it will all be worth it once it’s done. It’s hard to believe that we are actually going to be living in the city!

Our new backyard

Our new location is a pair of Victorian houses that share a common wall and a huge backyard. The backyard is the main reason that we fell in love with the place. It gets a lot of morning sun and has a long patch of dirt that we can grow food in. I’m not sure how we are going to set up the garden space. Hopefully some community members will volunteer their time and help us get it started.

We also hit a really exciting milestone in March with CouchSurfing. We finally got up to one million members! Our house celebrated by watching the countdown (or up, in this case) and drinking mimosas. We were also teleconferencing the countdown with our cohorts in Costa Rica, which was fun to be able to see them too. Once the number 1,000,000 flashed on the screen, Andrew was able to freeze the image so that we could all take photos.

It’s hard to believe that this simple idea that Casey came up with a decade ago has become such a huge social movement. It is inspiring to be apart of CouchSurfing and watching it grow so quickly. Very exciting times!

A couple weeks after the official rollover into one million members, CouchSurfers around the world hosted events in their cities to celebrate. San Francisco hosted its event in Golden Gate park where we had hundreds of members come out to celebrate together. I was amazed at how well the event went. We had dance lessons, language lessons, a pickup soccer game, and tons of other events that volunteers organized. Jim, TTT and I arrived at 11AM and didn’t leave until 5PM. No wonder I got so sunburned! San Francisco is a tricky city. It wasn’t very warm out so I never felt like I was getting sunburned. But that’s no excuse for forgetting to wear sunscreen, I know!

A Million Members!

Two weekends after the million member event a group of us drove down to Big Sur to go camping. My skin was still really tender from the initial sunburn so I made sure to cover up this time!
We had a great time at the Kirk Creek Campground. Our campsite was overlooking the ocean where we walked down and looked at the tidal pools. At night we hung around the campfire and one of our friends brought her fire poi and put on a show for us. Jim and I even got up and tried it. It was so much fun! The secret is that it doesn’t even burn when you hit yourself, although it hurts from the blunt force trauma of hitting yourself.
Our night of camping ended with a lot of drama when the crazy campground host tried to kick us out because he thought we were all drunk. The next morning we made an official complaint in regard to his harrassment and were surprised to hear that he is actually mentally ill and has caused many incidents with campers. Hopefully Dave won’t be around to ruin any other camper’s weekends much longer.

Perhaps the most exciting weekend so far has been my trip to Disneyland! When living in a house with up to 20 other people it can be difficult to get to know people one on one. That is why we designed a program called Platonatron. It’s platonic dating within the house where we match people up and they have to find something to do together. Walker, Marselles and I were matched up a couple of weeks ago and we decided that the best place to go would be the magical world of Disney. We drove down Friday afternoon and attended a house party in Long Beach with a group of CouchSurfers, which started off with me locking my keys in my car. Luckily AAA came and rescued them for me.

Me, Walker, Mars and the Magic Kingdom

We CouchSurfed with a really nice guy named Brian who lives only ten minutes away from Disneyland. He was so accommodating and understanding of our crazy schedule. We showed up to Disneyland Saturday morning at 10AM and hit the park running. It was Marselles’ first time at Disneyland and Walker is such a child anyway it was magical. Walker was able to get a fast track pass because of his leg and we didn’t have to wait in line all day. I complained to Walker that he has forever ruined Disneyland for me. I am never going to want to wait in line again!

Me and Marselles skipping with joy

At one point we were exhausted and sugared out and wondering how much longer until the fireworks that night. We were surprised the see that it was only 5PM! Another four hours until the fireworks show. We decided to tough it out and hang out in the park until the show. That mostly included eating sugary food and desserts. When it finally was time for the fireworks show we were so happy that we stayed. We were able to get a reserved seat on the benches in front of the castle and had the best view in the entire place. The firework show was amazing! The fireworks themselves were beautiful, but it was the perfect timing with the music that made it so special. The show incorporates songs and spoken word from the most popular Disney movies and rides. At one point they have a real person dressed as Tinker Bell flying over the castle with a magic wand. That was really cool.