On the first day of my trip I learned that to properly CouchSurf, one must put out requests earlier in the day.  On my third day I thought I had a place to stay in Fairfax, VA, but on my arrival to Burke twenty minutes away after slugging out of DC, I found out that was no longer available.

Time for plan B.

I went to a nearby IHOP to use their WiFi, which they so kindly allowed me to take up a booth at dinner time to do, and got onto CouchSurfing.net and looked for nearby couches that were available.  I informed the hosts of what I was doing and that I’d really appreciate a ride from Burke to their home. I put out five different requests and within about five minutes this guy named Julio gave me a call.  He told me he could come pick me up in about an hour in Burke and bring me to his house for the night.

So I blogged for a bit and Julio gave me a call when he arrived.  He told me he was going over to Boston Market to grab some dinner so I went over there to meet him.  When I arrived he introduced himself and asked if I wanted dinner.  Of course, I was rather hungry so I accepted.  He gladly bought my dinner within moments of meeting me, I was really surprised.  I was happy enough to be able to get him to pick me up and let me stay in his home, but he just exuded hospitality.

On the way back to his house he explained to me his situation.  We would go back to his house and eat, but then he’d need to leave me there to go help his friend move some stuff.  So not only was he kind enough to buy me dinner, but now he was trusting me alone in his home.

As we arrived at his home he offered his scooter for me to ride around if there was anywhere I cared to go.  It was unbelievable.  He just had total trust in me.  I didn’t have anywhere to go, but I almost wanted to just ride it around to ride it around because it was pretty cool.

As we were eating dinner we talked about our lives and I found out we have a mutual interest in woodworking.  He has a wood shop in his garage where he works on various projects.  A short time later a friend of his stopped by.  She had recently gone through some troubles and he was letting her crash on his couch for a few days. She was waiting for a friend of hers to come pick her up so she didn’t need to keep staying at his place.  Julio had to get going so he left and Stacy, which I think was her name, and I chatted for a bit.  She told me about how kind and helpful Julio was.  She was pretty cool herself because no matter how much I tried to tell her she didn’t need to, she made a bed up for me, got me a towel for my shower in the morning, and told me I could have her leftovers in the fridge for breakfast.

Eventually her ride arrived and I was alone in Julio’s house.  How unusual.  I watched some TV and finished up my blogs and Julio eventually came home and brought me some orange juice for the morning.  We watched Comedy Central for awhile and eventually we were both off to bed.  He told me he’d need to leave early for work, but to feel free to sleep in as long as I’d like and leave whenever.  I took him up on that because sleep is awesome and in the morning I woke up to an empty house.

I wanted to do something nice for him, so I washed the couple of dishes in the sink as I drank orange juice and nibbled on some leftover Indian food from two nights before (one cannot be picky when Traveling on Kindness).  I made the bed and did my best to keep his house in as good of condition as when I got there. I left a little note about how I appreciated his hospitality and was on my way.

Julio is a fantastic individual and I hope my future CouchSurfing experiences are as great as this one.