sofasurfers

So delighted were the Police by the sight of the Skoda that they invited us up to their Police Dog Training Centre, which happened to be close to the fortress. Perhaps in their drunkenness, they overlooked the fact that this centre was in fact a restricted zone, so when we wandered up into the compound (a forbidding-looking redbrick institution where a Hammer Horror location manager might luck out), our ‘friends’ were nowhere to be seen. It didn’t matter! We’d been invited! So up we strolled, to be confronted by an plain-clothes female police woman (curiously attired in cropped trousers, sheer tights and apricot socks over the top). Somehow she wasn’t very happy to see us. To compare her appearance and behaviour to that of an angry poodle though would of course be thoroughly childish, but she barked and yapped away in Russian. But we’d been invited! So blissfully ignorant as to her orders, we strolled on – the dogs were just ahead of us!

She tore up to the ankles of the Skoda driver and nipped away at them (actually, she pushed him with both hands and the full force of her Russian form). But it was OK! We could see our new drunken friends by the kennels so we continued to feel fully invited. We had a 1969 Skoda, after all! And, indeed, our facetiousness paid off, as our friends pacified her, and I stole this photo of the dogs

You may think this has little to do with couchsurfing, but what it confirmed to me is that you can parachute into a land all alone only to find that instantly you have a gang. No one really minds that this is a gang of strangers – we are all bound by a common sense of adventure and a will to find new friends. It also confirmed that when on landing, you have to expect to hit the ground running – in fifth gear.

Footnote
“Do you know what Continental Europe thinks of Britain?” asks Mikhail, the Skoda man. No… “The joke is that, as islanders, you are all inbred. Meanwhile in Europe, we have been having this great party, where all nations ‘get friendly’ with each other.”