Warm Showers...not the golden kind

We grow up in a country where we’re taught to fear our neighbor- not “love thy neighbor” like the best selling fiction book tells us. I for one know I grew up with a father always pressing the issue of making sure the house was locked up like a fort and insisting on me having some sort of weapon on my person at all times. We walk around expecting to be victims. So is it a surprise to us when we become one? Let’s stock the house with a bevy of guns so we don’t fall prey to our fellow man.

But I digress…Let me step down from thy soap box liberal blubbering

Greg introduced me to warmshowers.org; kind of like couchsurfing.com but for bike tourists. Both have the concept of letting random’s into your home for whichever hospitalities you choose to see fit. “A complete stranger in MY home?! What about my flat screen LCD? What if they slit my throat in my sleep?!!” Maybe a bit extreme, but what I expect most Americans to think. I guess I expect most people to think that way. In planning our route and our quest, the main worry is where to sleep. Many of Greg’s fellow employee’s have been putting us in touch with their contacts, we’ve gotten great suggestions, and of course, we’ve started contacting people on Warm Showers. The first person we contacted was for our 22hour layover in London on the beginning leg of the trip. Can I just say that this man is so incredibly nice and generous with wanting to help us out, that my mind has been blown. When asked why would he be so willing to do help out? “Pay it forward” was the sentiment. He had come across so many amazing people that opened their lives up to him on his wanderings, that he felt doing the same for others was the proper return.

I don't expect people to be so nice and it makes me wonder what's wrong with this county? A country where a majority say “what’s in it for me?” or “I’m not letting a random stranger into my home, they could do X, Y, or Z to me”. Here is a site dedicated to people letting random strangers crash in their intimate private settings, those places we call ‘home’. Being the American I am, I can’t help and think “what’s the catch?” I am doing my best to change this programed outlook and will tell you this much, I am going to embrace this trip and the generosity or lack thereof, if it so be, and be thankful to everyone. I will also pay it forward.