Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

An ever-growing list of experiences I’ve had hosting Couchsurfers

• After hitting a Macklemore concert in Aspen, Anna (Maine) and I posed as luxury hotel guests snuck into a steaming hot tub on a snowy afternoon in Boulder and recounted our favorite concert memories.
• Lena (Germany) and I took in an evening of incredible motivational talks at Ignite Denver and swapped inspiring book recommendations over some of Denver’s finest craft brews.
• Ana (Mexico), Nanni (Oregon) and I attempted a morning yoga session in an all-too-cramped extra bedroom which ended in riotous laughter and little to no yoga being done.
• Monika and Petr (Germany) nearly froze their toes off sleeping in the Walmart parking lot before warming up at my place over late-night beers and tales from their Bavarian village festivals.
• Kate and Andrei (Belarus) advised me on the best camping spots in Europe’s oldest medieval forest and recounted their family vacations to the Black Sea before Russia’s annexation of Crimea cut off their route.
• Hagen, Lukas, Julian (Germany) and I met some fellow German speakers at a local Subway before getting rowdy at their first American college football game.
• Katharina (Germany), Danniel (Israel) and I devoured overstuffed Costa Vida burritos and fended off one overly aggressive duck while watching the smoldering Utah sunset over Cedar City.
• Marie (Germany), Katherine (Austria), Tiago (Portugal) and I drove to the top of a nearby mountain and gazed up into the night sky for hours as shooting stars rained over southern Utah.
• I woke up on my birthday this year to box of surprise doughnuts with “Joyeux Anniversaire” scrawled across the top from Roxane and Charline (France).
• Markus (Germany) and I inconspicuously Googled “Henry V synopses” in our respective languages trying to keep up with the plot during a Shakespeare Festival performance. He also planted this idea of a bike trek from South Africa to Egypt in my head that I can’t seem to root out.
• Olivia (Wisconsin) and I dished startup venture ideas, exchanged books and eventually exchanging letters as pen pals once she continued on her travels. She’s since started her company and some of my students have applied for the internship opportunities her company finds!
• Alina (Germany) and I called the most enthusiastic horseback riding guide in the Western United States and booked her a 12-hour dream ride through Zion.

If you are looking for language partners to improve your foreign language skills you can find it on swaplanguage.com.