As most of you have already heard, my laptop was stolen last weekend at our house party. I was really distraught at first, but I am coming to terms with the fact that my years of photos and documents are gone.

We had a CouchSurfing party at our house in Berkeley and somehow a man, who is not a CouchSurfer, was able to sneak past our vigilant security, which consisted of whoever  was out on the porch smoking at the moment, and he found my laptop which was hidden in my dresser drawer.

We called the police the next morning when we found out it was missing and Officer O’Donnell came out to our house to have a look around. He asked some questions and then left at which point I just assumed nothing would be done because it’s impossible to track a laptop with no lojak. We were surprised the next morning when he returned with a page of mugshots for us to look at. Jim and I weren’t able to identify any of the men from the photos, but our friend Kelly was able positively identify one of the men because her dog had been attacking him all night, which made her take special notice.

Officer O’Donnell told us that the man she had identified was seen on Saturday stealing a laptop from a window and a witness was able to write down the license plate number as he drove away. The man is a local criminal working in the area and had just been release from jail the month before.

This is the second time that we have had somebody attempt or successfully steal items from us at our house. The week before two people had tried to break into Jim’s truck and steal the GPS unit that I had forgotten to remove from the dash. Luckily our concerned neighbor called the police and, while the crooks were not apprehended, they were unsuccessful in breaking in.

These events have definitely put our house on edge. The police officer who responded to the attempted break in on Jim’s truck told us that our neighborhood has the highest rate of theft in the entire Bay area. It has a lot to do with the fact that we practically live on UC Berkeley campus and all the housing around us is college housing. It makes it easy for criminals to find victims from the college students.

We are taking extra precautions in protecting our property. We are installing motion detectors around the house and special heavy duty combination locks on the doors. Hopefully this will prevent any further attempts on stealing our things.

On a good note, my renters insurance is covering the cost to repolace my laptop! I’m excited that I am getting a Mac Book Pro for myself this Christmas. I have a friend who works at Apple and he is going to let me use his discount and I can’t wait!

Well, the majority of the polls are closed and Barack Obama has been named the President Elect. Wow! I am so excited to be apart of such an amazing chapter in our history! The United States of America has elected its first black president.

To say that Obama was elected just because of his race would be unfair and racist. I don’t care what people say, if you vote for a person just because of his or her gender/ race that is descrimination and it goes against every civil liberty that this country has fought for!

The truth is that Obama is an amazing orator. His ability to excite large crowds of people is a large contributor to his winning campaign. When his victory was announced on the news, our neighborhood went insane. Our house in Berkeley is located on a row of fraternity and sorority houses from UC Berkeley. There were students crowding into the streets cheering. We even had the good fortune of watching a group of female students running down the streets topless. I think the guys in our house were especially appreciative of that kind of celebrating.

Alaskans stuck to their guns Tuesday night and the state came out republican, as always. Surprisingly it looks like they have re-elected Senator Ted Stevens who, according to the Anchorage Daily News, was convicted on seven felony charges a week ago. As of this morning the ADN reported that there are still 40,000 absentee ballots out, but it looks as if Stevens is going to be the first senator re-elected after being found guilty of criminal charges.

Historically Ted Stevens has been a driving force in the development of Alaska. He has been able to use his position in the senate to ear mark millions of dollars for Alaskan projects, which most Alaskans are in favor for. Stevens’ re-election is a testament to the localism that is abundant in Alaska. Alaskans have a large distrust of the “Outside” and especially of national politicians who don’t understand the idiosyncrasies of Alaskan life. As a people who play hard in the summer during the 24 hour days and struggle to survive the winters during the 24 hour nights, we don’t appreciate being told what to do and would rather reinvent the wheel than use an idea from any of those “lower 48ers”. So I guess it’s not such a big surprise that Uncle Ted is back! It would have made a much larger impact on the election if he had been convicted in Alaska rather than by a jury in Washington DC. We just don’t trust those folks!

I am deeply saddened that Proposition 8 passed in California. It feels like a step backward in civil liberties everywhere. As the largest state in the union, California has the ability to influence the way the entire country defines equal rights.

Proposition 8 was the measure to change the California State Constitution to state that only a marriage between a man and a woman would be recognized by the state of California. First of all, I don’t understand that in a time of economic and education crisis politicians were so concerned about putting this on the ballot. Millions of dollars were spent on both sides and Prop 8 passed 52% to 48%.

Second of all, I don’t understand how a state that overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama with 61% of the vote could so openly disregard the constitutional right of an entire population! I would further argue that defining marriage in the state’s consitution is an obvious lack of seperation between church and state. Either marriage is a religious organization in which it would be up to each church to decide who it will marry. Or marriage is a government organization in which every citizen should have equal rights to participate and receive whatever benefits from that union. You can’t have it both ways!

I know that gay citizens will eventual have equal rights, it’s just a matter of fighting the good fight and breaking down these ridiculous barriers.

Today is the big day that we change the course of our country’s government. Somehow I managed to screw it up and not get my absentee ballot in time to vote in Alaska. Luckily, our current delegate system makes that okay because no matter which way I would have voted, the outcome for Alaska would be the same. It’s a notoriously conservative state.

It’s a bit disconcerting to see the popular vote not represented by the Electoral College. CNN is reporting that both candidates have over 21 million votes, yet Obama has 199 electoral votes versus McCain’s 78 electoral votes. So no matter who you want to win, it seems a bit odd that the majority of Americans are not represented by the Electoral College. Every election season people bitch about this inconsistency in our system, yet it never seems to get corrected.

It’s also a bit more socially acceptable at the CouchSurfing house since almost every person here is registered to vote in another state or comes from a foreign country. Ben and Triple are the only two CSers registered to vote in California and Laura is the only person I know who had herself together enough to get her absentee ballot in on time.

It makes me wonder what the statistics are for American CouchSurfers who vote regularly. Or CouchSurfers at all for that matter. I don’t feel that CouchSurfers are a particularly political crowd of people in general. I think of CouchSurfers as individuals who prefer action to rhetoric and probably have such a 40,000 foot level view of world politics that perhaps local, or even national, politics just don’t show up on their radar.

At the moment we are all hunkered down in the Berkeley house monitoring the election coverage while we wait for dinner. Once dinner is over we plan to head into San Francisco and show our patriotism the San Fran way, with a party! I’m sure the city is all abuzz tonight with the coverage and, of course, most of the venues include dancing and other activities. So no matter who wins tonight, at least we’ll have some fun!

I am finally starting to get into a groove here at the CouchSurfing house in Berkeley. I’m still having a great time hanging out with all my friends, but now I have a purpose which is really exciting.

Yesterday we had a BaseCamp rally for all the volunteers here at the house. Jim, Casey, TTT and Weston gave a great presentation that reminded us of why we are here and the goals that CouchSurfing International is striving toward, both short term and long term. It’s exciting to see the direction that CouchSurfing is heading and the unlimited potential that it has to affect people around the world in intercultural exchange and understanding.

In the meeting we discussed a lot of the BHAGS (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) that we want to set for ourselves. These are huge goals that, although audacious, are completely feasible in the long run. It’s just going to take a lot of baby steps to get there. Some of these goals were global in nature, like the Nobel Peace Prize others were internal goals like being able to have an entire staff on salary with health care and vacation.

The most immediate BHAG has been to receive 501(c)3 federal non-profit status, which we are sending an updated request to the IRS the first week in November and expect to have an answer by the end of the month. I am really excited about the possibilities a non-profit status will open up for us. We will be able to collaborate with other non-profits and apply for grants and other funding.

The meeting left me excited about all the areas that I know that I can really contribute to CouchSurfing. There are so many exciting things that need to be done, it can be really overwhelming trying to decide what to work on.

After the meeting I sat down with Casey, the founder of CouchSurfing, and we discussed areas that need immediate attention. We came up with a task management system where the directors (Casey, Jim, TTT and Weston) can post administrative tasks that need to be done and I will manage the tasks by assigning them to volunteers and doing all the follow-up to make sure that they are completed. We are calling the project TaskForce for now and we are using Mantis bug tracking system to facilitate. I know there has to be a better program out there for this type of group task management, so if anybody has any suggestions, please let me know!

I am so happy to have a purpose in life now! Things with fundraising are heating up as well and are going to take off once we get our 501(c)3 status. I’m on Kelly’s fundraising team and will be working mostly with Major Donors and filling in wherever else needed.

It’s amazing that my days went from having nothing to do to having so much to look foward to! I’m still planning on getting part time job to have a little extra income, but plan on spending most of my time devoted to CouchSurfing. It’s inspiring to be able to work with such an amazing group of people who feel passionately about a project that really has the ability to have a positive affect on so many people around the world.

Life has been an amazing rollercoaster ride lately. After two weeks in Europe I spent a week driving the Cassiar with Jim to arrive in Berkeley, California last Monday.

Our drive on the Cassiar was incredible! I was worried that there wouldn’t be many gas stations and most of the road would be unpaved, but we didn’t have any problems. The fall colors were vivid and gorgeous and, except for a blizzard north of Glennallen, the weather was beautiful. We got to see a lot of different animals included a herd of buffelo, a wolf, foxes and I almost hit a black bear when it ran in front of my car. We only spent two nights in Canada. Sunday night in White Horse with a couchsurfer named Pam and Monday night in a hotel.

The road trip was without incident except for the time that I took a wrong turn and we almost ended up back in South-East Alaska. Luckily Jim is a good sport and we were able to laugh it off. It also allowed us to see a beautiful glacier that ran into a lake right off the side of the road.

My week in Berkeley so far has been relaxed as I settle into the life of living in a huge house with 15 other people. I am starting to get into the swing of things and will soon be working on Fundraising with Kelly and taking more menial tasks off of Casey’s plate. I’m also beginning to look for jobs in the Berkeley area. I’m not sure what I’m interested in yet, but hopefully when I find it, I’ll know.

Living in the CouchSurfing house has been a blast. It’s wonderful living with such fun people who are never boring! There’s always so much going on. Communal living also has its trials and tribulations. We have a chore list on which people are assigned to teams of two and have a chore to complete each day. For the most part this has been working really well except that the floors tend to get forgotten. Oops! We are also lucky in the fact that we have a volunteer, Derek, who cooks for us five nights a week! Most dinners are the equivalent of a four course meal with yummy desserts each night! Have I mentioned that we are a bit spoiled? I love that we all sit down and eat together family style. Derek also brings volunteers from the community to help with dinner so we are meeting new people every night.

Being so close to San Francisco makes our social calendar pretty full. This weekend was especially busy. We went to a potluck at Jay’s house Friday night. A house party at a mansion Saturday night that included AcroYoga, all you can eat Sushi that was being prepared in the kitchen, full bar and a dance floor. There were also a ton of people in the swimming pool and hot tub, but we never made it in. Sunday was the most fun of all! We all dressed up and headed to Decompression in the industrial part of the city.

The Boof photo booth

Even the drive to Decomp was amazing! We were crossing the bridge to the city and the Blue Angels were buzzing the bridge as part of fleet week. Kelly was asleep in the back seat when they first flew right over our car and it woke her up with a start!

We went ahead and paid for parking in a lot so we didn’t have to worry about the car. When we were walking into the festival a car pulled up and asked if we were going to Decomp. Kelly, being a smart ass, said, “No, we’re going to church!” I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically since we were all dressed up in some pretty interesting costumes. Jim was wearing red velour pants with fur, I was in a bright pink wig, corsette and tutu, Weston was wearing tiger print chaps and Kelly was looking adorable in a dirndle.

Me looking pink and adorable!

The driver of the car ended up being Stephen from the band Third Eye Blind who I met this summer when they were up in Alaska. I said, “Hey, I know you! Weren’t you in Alaska?” They parked the car and ended up walking with us to Decomp where we let them cut in line with us because our friends were already there.

Hanging with Stephen from 3EB

The festival was so much fun! I’m lucky that Shameless Heather let me raid her closet for my costume. She lives in SF in a townhouse and the closet for her costumes is bigger than her bedroom! We spent the afternoon and evening walking up and down the boulevard looking at the art cars, art installations and watching the performances. Heather MCed a variety show at a club that included a political satire from the Butt Hole Puppet Players. I would go into more detail, but it’s impossible to describe.

I had a great time looking at what other people were wearing as well. Some of the costumes were incredible! There was a group of men who were in these metallic multi colored outfits that they obviously have spent a lot of time on. They all matched from their head to their toes. There were also some people who wore nothing at all. We went to get shaved ice at the Lost Penguin tent and the woman serving it was completely naked. I’m sure that’s against food regulation, but hey, it was free and delicious!

The fabulous rainbow men

As the night wore on and Decomp began to wind down. We headed over to a club called Retox where a lot of Burners were hanging out. We had a great time dancing and meeting people. Hearing people’s stories makes me excited about going to Burning Man next year. I’m going to have to start accumulating costumes now!

We had the most amazing weekend at Oktoberfest! We couchsurfed with a 6’8 German named Ingo who is awesome and not only welcomed us into his home but also served as our tour guide.

We showed up Saturday evening to Ingo and Angela’s house which is in the suburbs of Munich. We walked into a housewarming/ birthday party so there were a lot of people milling around. As is my nature I just jumped in and started meeting people! It helps that Ingo is a fanatic about everybody wearing name tags so it was especially easy not to forget names.

Matt and me with Ingo

Almost everybody at the party spoke a bit of English and one of Ingo’s friends, Leighton, is British so that made it easier. Ingo was also hosting another surfer, Jackie, from Boston who was new to the mix as well. After a couple of beers we weren’t feeling shy and we were dancing and singing. Ingo passed out Oktoberfest songbooks and had them playing over the entertainment system. I don’t speak any German so the locals thought it was pretty funny when I tried belting out the words in an American accent. They were all very helpful and amused that we were so willing to try to learn the songs anyway.

The party lasted into the early morning but we didn’t get to sleep-in too long the next day because the film crew from the German telelvision station was due at noon and there were a lot of people queued for shower time!

A couple days before we arrived in Munich Ingo had written me an e-mail asking if it was okay if the news station did a story on us couchsurfing with him. Apparently Alaskans coming to Oktoberfest isn’t as common as we would imagine. Of course we agreed, I mean, it’s a good story at least! So bright and early Sunday afternoon the television people arrived to do their piece on Couchsurfing.com.

It was fun getting interviewed and setting up the scenes. They had us put our backpacks on and walk up to Ingo’s house as if we had just arrived. Then they shot video of us walking into the bedroom and settling in. I was surprised that they used my interview footage because I kept looking at the camera! Apparently there’s a lot I need to learn before making a career in Hollywood.

Having a beer with the tv crew in Munich

The best part about getting interviewed for German Television is that the crew was able to get us into the Lowenbraur beer tent and get us a table, which is unheard of opening weekend! We didn’t even show up to Oktoberfest until 3pm and the tents had been closed for hours.

Sitting in the tent is unlike anything I have ever experienced! You can hardly call them tents. They are more like airplane hangars and there are thousand of people in each one! The barmaids are all burley and can carry about 100 pounds in beer through crowds. No hotties in dirndles here! Leighton was telling us how they make so much money in the two weeks of Oktoberfest a lot of them don’t work full-time the rest of the year.

We sat at our table for a few hours drinking and singing. I made it through three liters before I was really feeling it. In the U.S. vendors would be probably walking around selling hot dogs and french fries and other greasy food. At Oktoberfest everybody was eating radishes and pretzels. So different!

Ingo and his radish

After going through quite a few liters we decided to walk around the festival and see what the Germans get up to. Ingo took us to the devil’s wheel which is an ancient ride that has been around forever. It’s this wheel on the ground that spins and people get on it and they get it going pretty fast and the goal is to see how long you can stay on. It’s fun to watch people fly off left and right. Once it gets down to the last couple of people then the carnies start dropping a large weight from the ceiling to hit people off and if that doesn’t work then they use ropes to try to lasso people off the wheel. I even got to box a girl on the wheel, but mostly I just fell over. Matt still has a horrible case of rope burn that runs from this forehead down to his cheek. He’s lucky that it missed his eye!

After we spent a significant amount of time at the Devil’s Wheel we decided that we were ravenous! It was off to the half chickens for us. I must say that the food at Oktoberfest is amazing. They have these chickens on the rotisserie all day and they are ridiculously juicy and flavorful, especially after a night of liter beers and the Devil’s Wheel.

The beers are big at Oktoberfest!

While everybody else in our party was working on getting our chickens Matt and I were standing on the sidewalk watching people pass in variations of stumbling. A group of Italians was walking our direction and one of them was obviously wasted. He stumbled and fell at my feet and then grabbed my leg. I thought that he was just trying to pull himself up and I was about to try to help him when all of a sudden I felt this shooting pain in my leg. He was biting me! I gave out a yelp and Matt kicked him in the back making him fall over again. I was so stunned I wasn’t sure what had just happened. I turned to Matt and cried, “I think he bit me!” By this time the kids friends had run over and grabbed him and were trying to get him to walk away.  Matt started yelling and the kids and the least drunk of them were trying to apologize for their drunk friend.

Once it hit me that the kid had actually bit me I got super pissed! I walked over to where the kids friends were holding him up. “Who bit me, ” I yelled. “You bit me?” I slapped him across the cheek and then shook my finger in his face yelling, “No! You don’t bite people!” It felt like the equivalent of reprimanding a dog, which was probably his cognizant level at that point.

His friends were starting to yell at us when Ingo started walking over to resolve the situation. Once they saw a 6’8 Bavarian heading their way they grabbed their friend by his arms and starting high tailing it toward the exit.

The rest of our night passed without as much excitement and I had quite forgotten the whole incident by the next morning. It wasn’t until I was complaining about all the bruises on my legs from the Devil’s Wheel that Jackie pointed at my leg and said, “That’s not from the Devil’s Wheel! That’s where that guy bit you!” Sure enough there was a perfect bit mark in deep black and purple on my calf, which is still a dark bruise almost a week later so that tells you how hard he bit me!

The rest of our weekend was not nearly as exciting as dancing on tables and getting bit on by Italians. We did spend a bit of Monday walking around Oktoberfest then we headed into Munich to check out the city. Of course we had to stop for lunch at the Hofbräuhaus and buy tshirts. After all, we are tourists!

Matt\’s Budapest Slalom

Budapest has proven to be my favorite city so far on our tour. The city is actually composed of three cities that have slowly amalgamated into one big city, Buda, Pest and Obuda. The Danube River separates Buda and Pest and they couldn’t be more different. Buda is built into tall rock walls that served as easily defendable fortresses back in the 1300s and Pest is a large flat plain that was perfect for agriculture. We have spent most of our time exploring Buda which has been a good workout considering how steep we have to walk uphill to get to any of the monuments.

Last night Matt, Jon and I toured that natural caves that the river created under Buda. There was a large group from our hostel and it was fun to go with other English speakers our age. Our guide was hilarious! He’s a cross between Borat and the narrator in Everything is Illuminated. He was full of funny stories and dirty jokes. At one point we were all sitting down in a small chamber and one of the guys in our group suggested that we turn off our headlamps to experience total darkness. Once we all turned our lights off and were sitting there our guide said, “In the dark, you cannot see anything,” at which we were all thinking duh. Then a couple seconds later he said, “Except my cock.” It was so random it took us all to get it.

We also got to slither through some pretty narrow openings. At one point I slipped while trying to crawl sideways through an opening using only my left hand and left foot while trying to keep my butt in the air. Needless to say my butt got a bit wedged and I felt like a beached whale trying to wiggle forward. I had the guide in front of me telling my that my bum is too big while I can see the flashes of the camera as Matt is behind me taking pictures of the very embarrassing predicament. To make matters worse I was the first person in our group to go so I also had the other ten people watching me lament my big bum. By the end of the tour we were exhausted and all slept very well last night!

Today we walked up to St. Mathias Cathedral which I took a video of me holing a golden eagle. I really liked St. Mathias Cathedral because it’s old and beautiful, but not too big. It makes sense that they still hold mass there regularly unlike at the Vatican where it feels unreal.

Matt and I spent the afternoon in the turkish bathes, which was an adventure just trying to figure out what we were supposed to do. Nobody speaks English that great and the workers there are super rude! The bathes were neat though and definitely worth visiting. All the tile work and plumbing is from when they were originally built by the Turks when they invaded the area hundreds of years ago.

Tomorrow we are off to Salzburg. Not what kind of trouble we are going to rouse on our drive through the Alps. It should be good!