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!

Things have been really hectic and stressful at our house lately. We have to deal with our crazy landlord and it’s starting to wear me thin!

Jim stole me away for the afternoon yesterday and we had a great time eating in the Gourmet Ghetto and then bowling $1 games at Albany Bowl. We ended the night with dinner at my aunt and uncle’s house in the Oakland hills. Their house has an amazing view of the city and we arrived just in time to take in a beautiful sunset.

The whole afternoon and evening was a much needed break from the chaos that is the CouchSurfing house. The drive home was a nice transition from small intimate dinner in the hills to crazy raucous family in Berkeley. When we walked up to the house I could hear a lot of people in the kitchen talking and laughing and it made me smile. To realize that although I get burned out on being together all the time, I also miss it a lot when I am away.

I couldn’t help but get a bit warm and gooey inside when I walked in and everybody was together cleaning the kitchen and having a great time. It made me realize how lucky I am to have such a cool family to come home to. It’s really amazing that we have so many people living together in this house and, somehow, we all get along. Nobody fights and there isn’t one person who is passive aggressive. How did we compile a group of such amazing people from around the world?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!