Couchsurfing + Avignon + Ninja's + Arty Farty = A good weekend.

Back from Avignon!

Le Pont d'Avignon



  





Hobo's on the run                                        The street of our host's home 

 Sofie, Basti and I left friday towards our couchsurfguest in Avignon. Sofie had found Katia (Kasja)  after sending many many emails to couchsurfers in many different cities around Montpellier. She could offer us a "couch" for 3 people this weekend in her house in Avignon. None of us had ever couchsurfed before so we really started the trip with no expectations at all. After a short trip we arrived at Avignon, parked Basti's Ninja-mobile outside the city walls and found very quickly the house of Katia. She wasn't home yet so we strolled a bit around in the city center and I liked it immediately. It's very Medieval actually and everything within the walls is beautiful, on contrary everything outside of it stinks :-)

Pont d'Avignon and Avignon in the back



When we got back to her house, we finally got to meet our host for the weekend. Kasja is a girl from Poland who does her Master years at university in France. So 2 years ago she came to Avignon and rented this house with two other foreing students, her housemates changed for 2 French students but she still lives there. She took us out for dinner to this supercute eathouse: Ginette & Marcell where you could order all kinds of "tartines" and too many kinds of nice desserts. During the evening she told us that she had also lived in the States for a while and that she had done an internship for her studies (she studies French literature) in Koerdistan as a teacher. That last thing really impressed us, I'm sure my mum would lock me up if I would leave to Koerdistan for nine months. The reason she became a host for the couchsurfingsociety is because she used it herself so many times and in means of returning a favor, the best thing you can do is become a host yourself. After a lot of story telling, wine drinking and a bit of nightsightseeing in Avignon we went to sleep (on the best couch ever, I slept here better than in my room in Montpellier)

 



Barceló's elephant

On Saterday, (we woke up like soooo late) we really played the dumb tourist role and wandered around town armed with camera's and sunglasses. You can't go to Avignon without seeing the bridge and "Palais des Papes". Before the "Palais des Papes" there was this huge statue of an elephant, seemed like someone threw the thing out of an UFO. I found it a strange place to plant that thing but I must say that I started to like it after a while. It was made by some famous artist, Barceló and they will move it to another town after a while.

 I must admit that I didn't know they never finished the bridge, must be the reason why it's so famous because besides that there's really nothing special about it. In the afternoon we looked for a supermarket because we wanted to thank Kasja for her hospitality by making dinner for her. Than we presented our countries by playing YouTube movies about the most stupid artist we had:

Sofie picked out some women even I never heard about but she sang hilarious, Basti chose the Anton aus Tirol song and Kasja some Polish redheaded freak who sang about God.  



Théatre d'Avignon



Avignon is really a cute town but after 1.5 day you really have seen it all.  I think it's very crowded in the summer during the annual theater festival. That's what this arty farty town is known for as well. A nice place to live when you're retired I guess. I'm wildly enthusiastic about the couchsurfing though! This was definitly not the last time I'll try it. You visit an unknown city but really through the eyes of someone who knows all the nice spots and funny stories. And you really get to know an interesting person with a lot of stories because most couchsurfhosts are people who have been travelling a lot themselves!

So after a weekend with a nice couchsurfexperience, a ninja roadtripteam and a lot of sleep, time to make my backpack for the snowboardingtrip of Monday.

If still alive, I'll blog you back on Sunday!

Love Luis.

Basti, Sofie and Kasja the coachsurfhost



Palais de Papes








ps. Blogging pictures sucks big time!!!