Couchsurfing Paella Party

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Words are truly going to fail me miserably I think as I try to describe what an awesome introduction I had to Switzerland at the completely random event of the annual Couchsurfing Paella Party started by one very zany Swiss guy from Gossau. Firstly, within couchsurfing anybody can start a meeting/party/gathering - all you do is list it under the meeting page with the details and people can sign up to attend. The first year Vince (the paella party organiser) did it about six people were there...last year about 30 turned up...this year a whopping 140 showed up - including me!!

It had that familiar festival spirit...he had managed to convince his neighbour to let us camp in his field (for the right price of course - this is Switzerland - nothing is even cheap here so definitely not going to find things for free) and Vince had enough fore thought to even hire portable toilets for the event. My couchsurfing hosts in Vienna were also going along so we made the mission together on Friday...which meant we had effectively turned the Saturday night paella party into a weekend long event - woohoo!

This was the most international party I have attended - people from all over made the journey from Belgium, Austria, Germany, Italy, around Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and then you had all the people from other countries who just happened to be in the area...including Casey, the young American guy that started the whole couchsurfing project. And everyone was just so lovely - a massive group of open minded, approachable, happy people - you could walk up to anyone and introduce yourself and start chatting like you'd known each other for years. The level of comfortability I felt amongst this group cannot be accurately conveyed.

So Vince, who was loud and opinionated and just loved showing off his mastery of English swearwords, provided me a palace to sleep in (his massive 8 person tent), gave me a spongy mattress thing for comfort and successfully cooked two gigantic paella's (one meat and seafood, the other vegetarians for us animal lovers) - there was even enough for seconds! What a guy! We ate and drank and chatted our way through the entire Saturday evening...I picked up some very useful German phrases that I took great glee in repeating to every German speaker I found (Zwei fliegen mit einer klappe schlagen (to kill two flies with one slap)...warum ist die Banane krumm (why is the banana curved - apparently said when you dont know why something is the way it is)...ich habe Gänsehaut (I have goosebumps!)...as you can imagine the sayings wore pretty thin after an entire evening!!

On Sunday there were still about 50 of us hanging around so we attemped (and suceeeded much to my disbelief) in executing a very adventurous convoy to a lake about a half hour drive away and then afterwards to a restaurant another 20 minutes away...was quite a spectacle trying to organise such a large group of people in numerous cars!!! It felt like school camp or something travelling around with such a large group - most amusing.

Anyway, was most sad to say goodbye at the end of the weekend but the party carried on in a way I stayed in Zurich with a couchsurfer who was at the party on the Sunday night....ahhh, but the rest of Switzerland is a whole other blog entry.

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Photos

The camp ground
aka neighbours field...behind all the clouds back there are the Swiss alps...a nice backdrop for the whole thing quite frankly.

The man himself
Vince, paella cook extraordinairre and the palace he built me...the t-shirt explains him so well.

Martine from Brugge
This woman is responsible for me knowing about this party - I stayed with her in Brugge, Belgium and she inspired to me make a detour to Switzerland for this shindig - so many thanks to her!!

My hosts from Vienna
This is Birgit and Felx...after such a good time with them in Vienna then a successful mission together to Switzerland then the whole weekend partying together, we found it hard to say goodbye!

Road trip to St Gallen
A few of us made a road trip to nearby St Gallen for some lunch on Saturday (we figured that Vince had enough on his plate with preparing the paella without needing us begging for lunch as well!)

Then to a lazy afternoon...
We timed our arrival back from our road trip well - it was time for massages and lazing around whilst people were arriving and Vince was working his magic in the kitchen

Soooo organised
Its typically Swiss that Vince would be so organised to even label his car for the many missions he did to the train station to collect people!

The magic in action
It was technically the garage, not the kitchen, as these pans were not built for small kitchens in mind!

We want you!
Thats right - we want you at next years paella party!!

Food time!
We all tuck in...yum!!

Party games...
Spryo (Irishman living in Vienna) decides that we all need tattoos on our faces...Antoine (France) is this victim.

Did I mention the snake?
It may not come as too much of a surprise that Vince even has a pet snake...needless to say, I wasn't the one that took this photo as I was nowhere near it at ANY point in the evening!

Last ones standing
Last five standing (well, so we thought at the time - hence the five fingers we're holding up) but then we found Birgit afterwards...oh well, last six aint a bad effort!

Bigit and Me
Yep, Birgit was still standing as well...this is the effect of our all night party...at least I was in good company!

To the lake!
Trying to get organised...pretty hard going for such a large group of people all nursing their hangovers from the night before.