Just Nichols » Away we go!

What is Couch Surfing?

dad — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:12:39 +0000

Couch surfing is much more than a free place to stay. Its all about foreigners, us, meeting local people in their own homes. The reason most people do it is for the exchange of culture, ideas, and seeing the real life instead of just a tourist attraction. In our travels through Europe, we have stayed with the most interesting host families and individuals that you could imagine. Since we are musicians then most of the fun has been around jamming with our new friends. The exchange of ideas in areas of religion, politics, and learning about the special interests that our hosts have had such as sword fighting, metal working, open source programmers, environmentalists, vegetarians, and linguists.

Here is a picture of Justin playing a cello for the first time,
while our host plays the banjo for the first time,
and his daughter plays Justin’s violin.

To learn more about this style of travel, go to couchsurfing.com (link opens new window).

Nichols’ Travels Oct. ’07 Graphical Overview

nathan — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:33:24 +0000

Here is a little flash clip I made to give you a geographic overview of where we are and how we got there. Then we can jump into rich details and of course, humorous and thought provoking videos and photos … Continue reading →

View Photo Albums

nathan — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:52:12 +0000

As I am an adamant supporter of google, I use picasa and its web album features. Feel free to check out some photos there and request to view private albums. Have a great day!

-nate

Airlines lost our Guitar and Banjo?!

Justin — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:24:47 +0000

The moment the plane touched down, I knew that an adventure had begun. We slowly dribbled out of the plane (we were in the back) and stepped out onto the platform. We walked over to the luggage claimer, and waited for the guitar and the banjo. No sight of them yet… there not there… still not there…the conveyor belt is stopping… oh no… uh oh… where are they?

They were gone.

We looked at the other baggage claiming places, but no luck. Dad asked a man who looked like he worked at Vueling airlines what to do, he walked us to the lost and found. It seemed a million questions later the lady looked up and said, “We will call if we have any more information” and then motioned the next person in line to step forward.

Walking out of the airport, my dad told us that he thought it must have been sent here on a different plane. As we were waiting for a bus to take us to the train station,(our couch surfing host was going to pick us up there) we met some people from Colombia, and visited with them for a while.

Finally the bus came, and we hopped on with the Colombians. We had told our couch surfing host that he would recognize us because we would be juggling. Me and Nathan didn’t have any juggling balls, so I spun zuni poi swings- 2 strings connected to 2 weighted nylon pouches with little flags on them. I might post a video with me swinging them if I ever get good at them.

I went across the road to get a hamburger while Nathan swung the zuni poi swings, and that was when the host came. His car was too small to take us all, so he brought us to his house in two trips. Finally we laid down on the beds he had provided, and went to sleep.

P.S. We found the guitar and banjo about 3 days later, they got mixed up in another flight. We were heading for France at the time, so they shipped it there. It must have been convenient for them, because before they told us we would have to come and pick it up. It turned out great for us because we didn’t have to pay about 60 Euros to put them on our next plane ride.