Cherniwzi

Thursday 28^th of June



And indeed it did feel good to sleep! On wednesday I travelled to Cherniwzi (no idea how to spell it correctly). Once again I didn't know where I would be sleeping the next night. On the way I texted my possible host in Suceava Romania, that I am coming the following day. He told me that there are four German girls living in Cherniwzi, and I should ask them if they are awailable to host me. So I did, but I didn't get an answer for a while. So I started walking towards a place I knew there might be a hostel. I had called the only hostel in the city that had any information awailable (such as address or phone number) on internet or Lonely Planet. To my surprise someone answered in good English, but to my even bigger surprise he told me that the hostel didn't exist, but there might be one in a different address. So that was my only option at the moment. Of course I didn't have a map of the city either, but after a while I got myself a map and maybe after an hour I reached the city centre and was almost at the possible hostel, when something unaccepted happened. Two girls came to me and asked if I'm a couch surfer. There was an American girl living there who said I looked like one. And soon I found out that they all knew also the German girls. Then they invited me to a happening in cafe, and I of course accepted because I didn't have anything better to do. But we still had one hour time before it, so three Ukrainian girls wanted to show me their city and took me first to their University. It was funny, because the guard didn't want to let me in with my backbag, but after the girls told him I was a foreign student who needed to go and talk to the professors, he let us in. Eventually we even entered some halls even the girls hadn't been before, because we sneaked in behind a small guided tours (those one had actually paid money to get inside the Uni...).



After the sightseeing tour we went to listen two Indian guys giving a presentation about their homeland. It was quite interesting, and after the show the organiser told the audience about my situation that I didn't have a place to stay (I still hadn't heard of the Germans), apparently he used words as ”trustworthy eyes” and ”kind man”. No one offered me a place to stay even after that, but then the Germans texted me that I can stay at their place. Next I paricipated an English language class (teacher was an old Aussie guy), and after hanging out few more hours with the locals I met the German girls and we watched the football game together. It was a very interesting day, lots of things happened unplanned...

Today I woke up at 5.30 to catch the only bus to Suceava Romania. Here I already had a host, and after meeting with George he took me to his working place we had a huge lunch and had beers and then he took me to his village. Romanesti is a very small village close to Suceava, population around 500. These are the kind of places you would never go without couch surfing. And that, in my opinion, is one of the biggest reasons to use couch surfing.