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It keeps amazing me sometimes how the internet brought so many people closer together. Since my travel activity is highly restricted to my financial abilities, I still try to get in touch with like minded people, explorers, adventurers, and polyglots.

I discovered Couchsurfing about 6 months ago. Couchsurfing is not as much focussed on cutting costs, but it is more a way of life. It is built on the principle idea that there is a basic trust among people, and that participants offer their couch, guest bed, mattress, or any possibility for guests to stay one or more nights. On the other side, participants may search the Couchsurfing database to find lodging opportunities at their destination. In addition to actually finding a place to sleep, the most important benefit of couchsurfing is to get to know the locals as you would otherwise not have. Hosts (those offering their couch) often also offer to show guests around town, they might introduce you to some of their friends, or invite you to come along at a party.

How to register

Couchsurfing is free for everyone, and all it needs is a registration at the website. Once registered, you can make a profile, upload some pictures of yourself, and tell something about yourself. Your main goal is to achieve a basic level of trust, so that if you are approaching people to host you, that from looking at your profile they will get a pretty good idea of who you are, what your passions are. As you are building your profile, you can also indicate whether or not you would be able to host people. Not everyone might have this possibility due to various reasons, so you may also indicate that you are unable to host people, but you’ll be happy to show visitors around town or meet up for a coffee.

Participate in local events

Couchsurfing has a large message board system, allowing you to exchange information and ideas around a variety of topics. Many couchsurfers meet up locally at a regular basis, and this would be your first step into meeting up with other couchsurfers live in order to get a good idea of what it’s all about. Also, if you are traveling you might want to see if there are some events at your travel destination and simply join; Couchsurfing does not know any boundaries.

Building trustworthiness

There is always the elementary question: who can I trust, and who can I not. Remember, Couchsurfing is accessible to everyone, and there might be some people who are abusing the website for their own interests. In order to build a trust system, Couchsurfing has build a strong reference system (here you can read what others are writing about another person), a ‘vouching for’ system, and the possibility to have your identity and your address verified. Using these three parameters, you can easily identify who is more trustworthy, and who is not. In order to start building your references, it is recommended to become active in the community as soon as you can; join local events, or participate in the forums.

Couchsurfing is a great platform to save additional money on lodging, but moreover it is a way of life. Members are typically students, individualists, or very open-minded people who want to have a different kind of travel experience.

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I must have written by now a hundred times that I love traveling, and I’ll repeat it yet again… because I do. Mostly entertaining I find some common misapprehensions and prejudices about foreigners, their language and habitat. Don’t get me wrong, such misapprehensions and prejudices are unavoidable, since no person is able to know about all cultures in detail. Yet it is amusing.

I compiled a list of 9 misapprehensions and prejudices which I find not only amusing, but which I encounter over and over again. Any suggestions or extensions of this list are highly appreciated and extremely wanted.

1. The Netherlands is a German province – My all-time favorite, since I am a Dutch national and currently living in Germany. Believe it or not, The Netherlands is a recognized and separate country, with its own government and its own language. In fact, Dutch would almost have become the universal language of the United States… and they lost by one vote.
2. They speak Chinese in China – Yes, and no. China has 9 official languages. If you’re traveling to Inner Mongolia, Cantonese Chinese is not going to help a lot. Mandarin Chinese is the official and political language of China, but it’s not spoken everywhere and by everyone.
3. Paris is a country – No it’s not, it’s the capital of France.
4. Europe is a country – No, it’s a continent.
5. All Italians are members of the mafia – Sure, and so are Russians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, the Chinese, Romanians, Serbians, Albanians, Arabs, Nigerians, South Africans… you get the point.
6. All there is on the Arabic peninsula is sand – Believe it or not, there are cities, coastal areas, roads…
7. Germans all wear ‘lederhosen’ (leather trousers) – Sure, and they go to work like that, and they eat sausage and French fries each and everday day… actually many wear jeans and suits as well.
8. Traveling to Brazil will get you killed – I have to admit, certain areas do not meet certain safety standards. But then again, the 192 million people living there seem to get along fine, and there are many areas in Europe or the United States I don’t want to be in either.
9. They speak Spanish in Brazil – Not they don’t, they speak Brazilian Portuguese.

I’d love to read more…

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During the past 6 or 7 years, phishing has increased in popularity enormously. In short, Phishing refers to a criminal practice of obtaining the victims username and password for a certain purpose. Usually, victims will receive an e-mail, supposedly from a bank or financial institution, asking the victim to click a link in that e-mail, which would redirect them to the bank or financial institution, and then to confirm username and password. In reality, victims are referred to an exact copy of such a site, and all personal data is being recorded, so it can be used by criminals to log into the victims account.

Since some time, Cyrillic alphabet characters are permitted into a URL just as the roman alphabet. As many Cyrillic characters are identical to that of Roman characters, phishing criminals can trick victims by inserting a Cyrillic character into a link, in stead of a Roman one. You may want to try the following test (the first link is the normal link redirecting to the official website of Citibank, the second link contains 2 Cyrillic characters: “c” and “a”; the second link will not open an existing website as of the writing of this article):

http://www.citibank.com

http://www.сitibаnk.com (take a close look at the error web address claiming to be non-existent; it is “www.xn--itibnk-6nf5k.com”, not www.citibank.com)

Therefore, be careful not to open fraudulent links in e-mails. Best to type in the URL manually in the browser’s window.

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I am a member on various social networking sites. I use them to keep in touch with old and newer friends, but also to attend various events. About two months ago I discovered Internations. Internations is a social networking platform mainly for expats, or people living abroad. Internations is a free of charge platform, operating world wide, with the option of extended services for a fee. I have attended my first event in July, planning to attend again the upcoming event in two weeks.

I was very positively surprised about the German Frankfurt community, and I can imagine the positive vibe is present at other events around the world. Mostly, English is spoken, but I realized later on that it is a great opportunity actually to practice foreign languages. At the past event, I met people from Russia, Kazakhstan, France, Germany, and the Phillippines. The vibe is definitely very good, the people relaxed.

I am looking forward for my next event with them.

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I found an article today, posted by the independent, about weird vocabulary and expressions in foreign languages. I had a good laugh reading this.

Since I don’t like stealing someone else’s articles, you can visit the website here.

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With a wealth of possibilities available today to learn a language, it feels as if the world has truly become smaller. The options are endless, from language schools, to language travel courses, distant learning, and professional software packages to make language learning easier.

One software solution, which has been around since 1992, is Rosetta Stone. I tried Rosetta Stone already in 1998, when my interest in learning Chinese was growing steadily. Although it was quite costly, me being a student at that time, I bought the software package and started exploring. For me, it was the first time using a software solution like this, and also engaging into a self-learning course.

My first impression of Rosetta Stone was great. The software is greatly organized, it is intuitive, clear, and simple. The Rosetta Stone courses are based on how a person naturally learns a language as a child. The course starts with simple words and basic phrases, represented by pictures, becoming more complex as one advances through the course.

Still, one of the major issues I faced during my self-study course was the discipline to continue the course over a longer period. Studying the language using a software solution is fun, but the fun part starts diminishing slowly when the words and phrases become longer. At a certain point, one realizes that learning is just as an integral part of the learning process as fun.

To be honest, I quit using Rosetta Stone already in 1998, due to a lack of motivation, and different priorities. Additionally, using a software solution is great, but various language courses taught me that nothing can replace a real teacher, who can correct you in pronunciation, translation, and grammar. Therefore, I tend to see software packages as an additional bonus on top of traditional learning methods.

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If you are like me, you probably love to travel. In fact, I bet many people have travling in their top-5 list of most interesting and fascinating hobbies. If you don’t perhaps you may want to reconsider, since traveling can be quite an eye-opener, and will expose you to experiences and situations you may have never experienced back at home.

But let’s not indulge too much into the topic of travel… it’s the language that I want to write a few words about. I speak quite alot, 3 languages fluently, and 2 fairly well. It struck me recently, how I have come to speak them so well. I started studying Chinese last year in the summer, and although I have been attending my classes regularly, and I have been learning, I wasn’t getting anywhere. And then it struck me, as I went into a chinese bookstore to get myself a dictionary. I walked in, greeted the sales person in German (I live in Germany), bought the book, and went home.

But wait a minute! This guy in the bookstore was a Chinese. I could have greeted him in Chinese, paid in Chinese, ordered the book in Chinese!

Theory vs. practice

Most people, when they learn a foreign language, focus a great deal on theory. They buy text books, grammar books, dictionaries, study on vocabulary, tenses, conjugations, and follow class. This in itself is not bad. On the contrary, it is a great way to become introduced to a foreign language. However, everything you learn is stored in the conscious part of the mind. This means, that retrieving that information costs energy and time, and you are not able to retrieve the information you need within a split second.

But isn’t that what speaking a language is all about? When we speak out mother’s tongue, we do not think about what to say, and how… it is a second nature. In order to cultivate that second nature, it’s important to practice. Even if it’s simple hello or goodbye, practice is the key. Many people don’t practice, because they do not have the confidence. They feel that they need just a little bit more theoretical knowledge, before they could put it to use. However, does this cycle ever end?

Have you ever wondered why children are so good at learning languages? The answer is quite simple: they don’t care sh*** what other people think of them, just to put it plain and simple. They are simply not that well aware of the emotion called ‘embarrassement’. They would repeat and use the little knowledge of a foreign language as often as they can, no matter how wrong or right it is, with the same ease as they’d point to a stranger and yell Look at that ugly man over there!!

I whish there would be a formula to immediately boost confidence and start speaking. But there isn’t. Some people are truly confident, and have a much greater potential learning a foreign language than those who are very shy, and want to learn everything into perfection before taking action.

Theory and practice combined

The ideal way to learn a foreign language is to combine theory and practice. Theory might be necessary to become aquainted to the language, and learn some basic structures, as well as to improve the language skills. But it will not let you truly learn the language, and become fluent. Therefore, it needs practice. Perhaps you don’t know how to say everything, or perhaps you don’t understand everything, but it is sometimes astonishing how much a person can understand from hand movements, or from context.

One way to combine theory and practice is to go abroad to a language school. The great advantage to this, is that a lot of theory is packed into a short period of time, and you can apply it in the country you are studying immediately, as it is still fresh. Additionally, you will not be tempted to fall back to you mother’s tongue if you are not able to say something, as you would back home.

Additionally, you could grasp each and every opportunity to learn a language back home. If you are studying French, for example, perhaps there is a French community in your area you could join. You may want to buy a book in French and read it, or listen to French radio. I remember having learnt German as a child solely by watching German children broadcastings on television. It is great for passive learning. But then again, who wants to sit in front of the television all day…?

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With great joy I look back to my trip to Hong Kong in 2008. I can still remember the excitement, with which I had boarded the airplane in Germany, thinking about nothing else than the adventure, which laid ahead of me during the upcoming 2 weeks. The skyscrapers, the smell of unknown food in my nose, and the impatience of the taxi drivers are still present in my memory. I had viewed Hong Kong as a fairly wealthy city, a business city where everything is possible, where one could start small, and truly make it.

But, as faith inevitably wants it, I discovered the other side of Hong Kong. On a warm, humid, Saturday morning, I met up with a few colleagues from the company I work for. The company has a branch in Hong Kong, and a number of colleagues from the headquarters were in the Hong Kong office at the same time as me. We decided to visit the great Buddha on Lantau island, and set off with the cable car, which gave us an astonishing view over the Hong Kong hills, the sea, and the airport. Although the great Buddha is noteworthy for those wishing to travel to Hong Kong, we decided after a few hours to discover another part of Lantau Island.

Some has been written about Tai O, on the other side of the island, famous for being a small and authentic fisher village. Knowing that the only possibility to reach Tai O would be by bus, we were in for a smaller adventure, and were excited. I must admit, that the road is very curvy, bumpy, the bus was old, and the driver most probably had his foot rock solid on the gas pedal, thus this adventure might not be ideal for those with a weaker stomach. As we reached Tai O after an hour and a half, we exited the bus.

The village is truly a village, and is nothing compared to the metropolitan city of Hong Kong. Small alleys characterize the village, and we strolled through the market, which had all kinds of different items for sale. Mostly everything was old, not taken care of, and obviously this village has seen nothing of the money earned in Hong Kong city. Sometimes, I had the impression, that the locals were somewhat confused to see us, from which I may conclude that Tai O is not very well visited by tourists. Perhaps this is a good thing; I have seen many places, where tourism has done more harm than good. As we exited the market on the other side, we entered into a typical residential area. Some houses were extremely small, consisting of only one room, not seldom without a door, or without windows. The highlight were some houses, which were built on oil barrels, filled with cement or concrete. And at the pier, it was obvious that some ships, and a small crane, had not been taken into use for a number of years.

Tai O is an interesting experience, an eye-opener. I hardly dare to say, that I have experienced villages, and housing much worse than in Tai O. Still, Hong Kong is in no manner reduced to the metropolitan city only, and those seeking an adventure outside the urban area will find it, provided a little sense of adventure, and patience.

Visit Tai O in Google Maps here:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=de&geocode=&q=Tai+O,+Hong+Kong&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=37.598824,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Tai+O,+Hongkong&t=h&z=15

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I am a big fan of Couchsurfing. Although I have never hosted or slept on someone else’s couch, I admire the idea of travelers helping each others, and the ability to organize local meet ups. Having lived in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, for the last 9 years now, I can consider myself almost to be a true Frankfurter. And as such, I have received some requests from travelers, who are visiting Frankfurt on a top-over, what can be done within one day.

Actually, Frankfurt is located 30 minutes by train from the airport (the airport code for Frankfurt Airport is FRA. Many low-cost carriers flight to ‘Frankfurt Hahn’, which is not located even somewhere near the city, and should not be confused with FRA), and it is only a small walking distance to the city center by foot from the railway station; it would be a great pity not to visit the city, if you have that possibility.

My personal, very favorite, route to the city center is from the railway station, through the Kaiserstrasse, by foot. It does take you somewhat through the red light district and past a number of sex shops, and although I would not withhold myself from taking a look, what draws me most are the old buildings in that area. The architecture is quite well preserved, something which is quite scarce in Frankfurt, since the city had been heavily bombed during World War II. The Kaiserstrasse will take you directly to the Hauptwache and Zeil, the main shopping street of Frankfurt. Near the Zeil is also the Goethestrasse, where most well-known and upper class brands are located.

From the Zeil, it is only a few minutes walk to Römer, the most ancient place in Frankfurt, and typical tourist attraction. You may opt to take a few pictures, and perhaps on a sunny day continue for a stroll along the river Main. Especially during the weekends or late afternoon in summer, the Main is packed with people of all sorts. At the south side of the Main, the Deutschherrnufer offers a wide variety of different museums, if you are interested. Else, you may want to continue to the Maincafe, where you can get a cold beer, wine, soft drinks and something small to eat, and chill outside directly at the river.

Another noteworthy area of Frankfurt is Bornheim, if you are looking for something not so mainstream. The small streets and familiar atmosphere invite for a bit of shopping at the Berger Strasse, of for some relaxing at one of the many cafes. Should you visit Frankfurt on a Friday, you may want to visit Friedberger Platz, during late afternoon or at the start of the evening; it is packed with people who want to enjoy their start in the weekend, and surely you would find the opportunity to make a few interesting contacts or friends.

Myself, I highly appreciate Frankfurt for the contrast it provides; the city has an image of a great metropolitan city and Europe’s main banking capital on the mainland, yet is houses just under 700,000 people. Frankfurt has some impressive skyscrapers, yet it has has areas with older buildings and character. Frankfurt has fine and chic bars and restaurant where I’d be hesitant to enter with a jeans, yet it offers great alternative bars and clubs.