Wanted: a place to sleep

Lodging has been a bit of an adventure on this trip. Armenia was pretty good. My apartment was decrepit, somewhat expensive, and noisy, but the location was central and I had total freedom. In Germany I originally intended to do a fair bit of couchsurfing, having heard that it’s a great way to meet people and save money.

In the last month, however, I have sent out thirty-five requests, thirty-three of which have either been rejected or received no response. The other two I ended up staying at. The first was in Munich. I was hosted politely but thoroughly patronizingly. The second was in Essen where I went for the annual Spiel Convention (more on that soon).

I had agreed to meet my hosts at the rail station near their apartment. Five minutes after our agreed-upon meeting time I was called and informed that I would be met by her friend, who would arrive in five minutes. Other than my host holding forth on the ignorance of Americans and the irrationality of my parents’ line of work, the first night was largely unobjectionable.

Upon being informed that in America I did not go clubbing on a regular basis, I was immediately invited to a party my hosts were attending on the third night. I politely declined. When that night came around I returned home at around 10pm, exhausted and hoping to go immediately to bed. Instead I was greeted at the door by my host, who explained that the raucous sounds I heard were from a party in the kitchen (where I slept on the couch), and that in an hour they would leave for the real party. I opted to work in the other room until they left. I went immediately to bed and fell asleep, only to be woken up at 4am by loud talking and the hall light being turned on. I lay awake on the couch, frustrated that they weren’t more thoughtful about making noise so late. A moment later, however, there was a loud knock on the door, and before I could respond they came in and turned the light on.

“Hi, Jesse,” one of them said to me. I stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded as to what could justify the intrusion.
“Hi.”
“Well, we’ve just returned from the party, and we’ve been drinking.”
I nodded.
“And so we would like to make some food–some pizza–so if you could just sleep in the other room–is that alright?” My options, I felt, were either a tirade or passivity. Too tired to summon the necessary feeling for the former, I nodded cheerfully and picked up my blanket and pillow.
“You can sleep in any of the rooms,” my host generously offered, “we’ll just be making pizza.”

I left a day early, only just resisting the urge to leave a note oozing with passive-aggressiveness.

(The next night I stayed in a hostel in Berlin, where large groups of Italians deemed it decent to hold loud conversations at 3am and where the others in my room deemed it decent to turn the light on at 4am to find their toothbrush.)