I am trying something new by including a music selection for you to listen to while you read the blog...sometimes I have songs that totally come into my head when I am doing something - this song was chosen because I wondered if I had made a right decision and just feel like at every turn I am experiencing a deeper side of God's love for me.
Yet another train station and yet another cup of coffee while I muse over what to write here. This time I am sitting in the Hauptbanhof station in Munich Germany trying desperately to keep my eyes open as I only had about two hours of sleep last night. I am waiting for my friend to come pick my up but her train is not getting in for another hour so hopefully I will finish this before she gets here.
Today's musing is going to be on humanity's kindness; something that has overwhelmed me whenever I travel. Many times when you are traveling you have to rely on the help of complete strangers for directions to somewhere, explain a map, give insight on the best place to go, give you change for a bus that you don't quite have enough for, or even for a place to stay. I loved having reasons to connect with people on my last trip and it's awesome that this trip I actually have been able to develop some of those relationships. This one in particular was a guy that I met on a plane from Dublin to Germany last Christmas; he was reading a book about extreme sports and since I wanted so badly to ski I started asking him questions. Turned out he was a ski instructor in Austria and was headed there for their busy season - we chatted about a lot of things throughout the flight and ended up exchanging facebook names as a way to keep in touch as he offered to teach me how to ski if I could make it to the resort while he was there. *Side note, I have some real issues with facebook but one of the greatest things about it is the ability to stay in contact with people that you randomly meet.* I never ended up making it to the resort that he was working at while he was there though I did get to ski for a week (which was awesome!) but throughout the last year and a half we have kept in touch via Facebook. When he saw that I was coming in to Dublin (he is from munich but is a professor in Dublin) he offered me a place to stay and to show me around. Now, it can (and started to) seem rather foolish for a single young woman to stay with a man that she hardly knows and I have to confess that I started to get nervous. After all, all we ever hear about in the media is the terrible things that happen to young women or travelers. I want to tell the flip side of that, there is a HUGE group of people out there who honestly want to share their homes with other people for free - no bad motives, no desire or expectations of payback, just the knowledge that they are passing a little bit of kindness out to others people.
I stood nervously in front of the Trinity College Gates waiting for him to meet me there, wondering at whether I was being completely stupid for trusting that this guy would be honorable and I hear a warm voice, KARA! As soon as I looked up and saw his friendly, kind smile and that he was genuinely glad to see my my fears dissolved. I actually felt rather silly for all of my worries and felt even sillier as the night wore on and he literally bent over backwards to make sure that I had a wonderful time, including walking me to the bus at 5am in the morning because my "Irish mom" requested it and paying for my bus fare because the only accepted exact change and I only had a big bill...and all he said was that someday, somewhere, I could pay him back...and I totally intend to.
I am not saying that we should trust any random person who invites us to sleep on their couch but I really think it so unfortunate that our culture is so influenced by a media that exploits the bad and pays no attention to the good. Yes, I took a little risk but I was enormously blessed from the experience - not just the pubs that we visited, the walk along the grand canal, the awesome stories that he had to tell of his travels, or the local insight that he gave me on the history of Dublin, but I was blessed by seeing a beautiful side of humanity. There is a whole community of people like this and they call themselves, couchsurfers - you can be a surfer, a host, or both. People open up their spare rooms or couch for people to stay for free and most often if they can will show the surfers around the city. Everyone comes out on top because generally hosts are people who have been travelers and had to settle down so this is their way of meeting new people and keeping life exciting and of course the surfers get a place to stary for free, often a free tour guide, and both parties make new friends. Matthias and I actually visited a Couch surfing meeting last night and though we were too late to actually here the discussions that they had we were not too late to experience the friendly atmosphere that was in the room of people mingling, meeting, and trading stories. I love the whole concept and think that is the best use of social networking that has ever been. The website does take precautions against people who would seek to abuse it but I do know that it does get people who seek to use it for other things so I am definitely saying that you should use precautions and I personally would not stay with a guy that I had not already met in another context but as there are plenty of women who host my options are not limited by that.
Whew, since I had to stop writing that because my friend had come to pick me up it is now Monday and I have been in Munich almost two days now and am MORE than happy to be here. It's so funny how someplace so far from home feels like home to me. It makes me wonder if I am supposed to be here, I have just never experienced this feeling of "ahh, I am home" in another city. But I do think that part of that feeling is the friends that I have here already - going to the Mariandl after church for a drink and then being offered a ride home by a new friend while we discussed the service that I could only understand snatches of.
I am back again! wheew, after a day of refreshing myself with German public transportation I feel like it's all coming back to me :) I wandered around Munich visiting my some of my favorite spots again...it is really such a beautiful city!
Anyways, I am going to end this for now so that I can get it posted :)
