Charlotte, North Carolina

I got to Charlotte sometime in the evening, probably around eight. This was the first city that I had tried out the website CouchSurfing.org as a means of lodging. The concept is simple: some people want to host people, and others want to crash on peoples couches. There's no money exchanged, maybe a six-pack or something, but its really a cultural enrichment type deal. I had found this couple on the site who agreed to host me, which was cool. After getting their phone number and a street address I set my coordinates for their place. Arriving in Charlotte, the downtown looks amazing at night (see generic stock photo).

The apartment that I was crashing at was located really close to the "uptown" (thats what the Charlotteans call the downtown are, apparently because its on a hill). The house looked warm and friendly from the outside. I was pretty optimistic about the whole experience. The girl was pretty welcoming, a bit of hippy, but all around nice. Her boyfriend was at work and would be back soon. She told me that she used to have people crash all the time in college, but hadn't hosted anyone since she started living with her boyfriend in Charlotte. And apparently, he wasnt too keen on the idea. He arrived home to be much older than I had expected. She was in her early twenties and he was probably in his mid to late thirties. But the good news is that all the years of drugs took a nice toll on his brain, and connecting together a string words that didn't go on in an infinite loop was a task that seemed impossible for the salt-and-peppered ex-Californian. But none of this was a big deal to me because I, after all, was their guest. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, with the highlight being the two of them were vegetarians and kept rambling on about how they would break their veg for good BBQ. He went on to talk about this BBQ place he really wanted to take me to, and for the rest of the night was all about it. Eventually, I went to sleep.

I woke up the next day, to be greeted by the girl explaining that her boyfriend was drunk last night, and woke up sober in the morning and didn't want to break his veg. He didn't have the heart to tell me, so he made her do it after he left for work. Needless to say, she took me to a BBQ for breakfast and proceeded to eat more chopped pork than I could. Hippies are strange.

After that, I really didn't have a good view of Charlotte. I proceeded to walk around the beautifully redone downtown, and didn't find much to do. I found a bar in the downtown with an incredibly friendly and gracious bartender named Richard. He told me about all of the cool spots in Richmond that weren't the downtown. I checked a few of them out just by driving through. Then I stopped at this Asian fusion restaraunte conveniently located right next door to a tropical fish store (apparently with no relation). I met some very hospitable waitresses in the restaurant who convinced me that maybe Charlotte was not so bad. This was all well and good, but it was time to venture on.

I could see myself in Charlotte again. It wouldn't be a bad place to live.