CouchSurfing

Okay, picture this as a potential travel package:

Lodging at a residence 30 minutes outside of Rosario, Argentina, surrounded with lush gardens and tastefully decorated interior spaces with a minimalist feel. A private bedroom in the corner of the house with personal bath, living room with TV/soundsystem and a wide variety of international movies and music available (with a focus on tango and modern tango). Full kitchen stocked with Argentinean teas and snacks, and an aspiring cook to prepare dinner for you. Chauffer service to Rosario in the morning and from Rosario at night; also, convenient bus service to the downtown area three blocks away.

Price: Free.

This is where I´m at right now. But it´s not a travel package. It´s better. It´s called CouchSurfing. And it comes with one major caveat:

You have to trust a stranger.

Now I´ve been told since I´ve been a kid that ooooooooh, that´s not a good idea. I think we all have been told that. And it´s valid. To an extent. And over the past week I´ve started to realize that the extent to which it´s true is not that expansive, at all. Trust the drunk man on the train staring at me with his eyes on my bag? No. Trust someone who volunteers to make things easier for people travelling through his area? Well, for me, it´s changed my experience for the better to say ¨Yes¨. Maybe trust is something that is too precious and valuable to negate through an all-encompassing axiom (one that implicitly assumes dangerous behavior is normal behavior). Maybe it should lie somewhere more in an honest evaluation and gut-check of each person you meet. Maybe I´m becoming dangerously idealistic.

What I do know is that Sergio - a science professor at the big university in this town - has provided me with all of these amazing things, and keys to his house, because he trusted me right away in the same seemingly-illogical way. My Spanish is improving, I´m living luxoriously, and ´m full, but most importantly (by far) is that I´ve been given the opportunity to get to know a really wonderful guy who is interested in where I come from and the things I believe in as well. Sergio is the first person I´ve spent a lot of time with who speaks Spanish exclusively, which has made staying with him even more valuable for me. (My recent improvements have made me feel better for saying the word ¨diecicinco¨ to a vendor in Buenos Aires a few days ago - which is something like saying ¨twoteen¨ instead of ¨twelve¨ and rightfully provoked an aghast facial expression from the man.)

So CouchSurfing - it´s an incredible way to travel, and incredibly frightening until the precise moment you kiss your next host on the cheek. Before Sergio I stayed with Federico in Buenos Aires, and after Sergio I will certainly seek out others. If I can break the tourist-resident barrier in any way I will try to . . . I´ll try to think of the money I´m saving on lodging and food as little extra rewards for my tiny leaps of faith in humanity.