“Wow, you don’t get anything for free around here,” my friend Cindy said, plunking her coin into the slot and going first into the bathroom. “And it’s really clean!” she exclaimed.

“What a shame. I just love those ‘Times Square clean’ kinds of places. It reminds me of home,” I said, looking around at the beauty that was Versailles, France. Even the portable toilets had that je ne sais quoi.

When it was my turn, Cindy held the door open for me. As soon as the door closed behind me, I felt something trickle down my neck. It was water, or so I hoped. Then I saw something squirting out of the walls. It was white and sudsy and could either be soap or anthrax. I realized at this point, that not only had I forgotten to pay my franc for entry, but that this was also a self-cleaning toilet, and it was self-cleaning me!

As more white stuff oozed out of the walls, the panic settled in. I tried the door, but it was locked. I looked for buttons to push, but I saw nothing.

And that was when I began to fear that this was the end. Best case scenario, I imagined French police surrounding the potty, yelling “come out with a franc in your hand or we’ll blow your brains out!” I, of course, would scream something genius, like “your cheese smells like feet” (because I am indeed, a cultured American) and go down in a hail of bullets. There’d be an article about my heroic standoff and millions would weep at my funeral. Worst case scenario, I would simply die from exposure to the soap chemicals.

And then I saw it, a huge red button that said “sortie.” Strangely, my high school Spanish was of no help here, but I decided to push it. The door creaked open and I fled to safety.

And where were the police? They were nowhere to be found, as I had apparently only been in there for about two minutes. And what about Cindy? Why did she not answer my cries of anguish? Well, she had collapsed from laughing in a heap in front of the bathroom. But I learned some important lessons that day: nothing in life is free, and soap sure burns when it gets in your eyes.

- by Emily Epstein of b’scuse me? fame.

Travelistic has posted blogs about the good-karma lodging concept before (check out www.couchsurfing.com if you’re unfamiliar with it), and I’ve written about Couch Surfing myself for the Washington Post’s travel section.

But when you’re a CS member and the new experiences never end, there’s always more to say. While I haven’t been crashing on anyone’s spare loveseat since arriving in Biarritz a few weeks ago, it’s thanks to the site’s mission of bringing like-minded travelers together that I’ve made a great local friend here named Thierry.

He shows us the best tapas places, text messages my boyfriend daily with the surf report from his end of the beach, and is always keen for a cultural conversation that sheds light on the complicated but fascinating nature of Franco-American relations.

He corrects my French, too, which I love.

Last night we had dinner together, and Thierry brought along another Couch Surfer who had contacted him through the site – an Englishman, Chris, who is hitchhiking his way around the South of France during a two-week vacation.
“My mother is very worried,” said Chris, a seasoned hitchhiker in his 40s, as we sat in a cozy Biarritz Italian restaurant and tucked into entrecote steaks. I relayed my own mother’s response when I told her about meeting strangers through Couch Surfing: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” she warned.

If the matriarchs could only see us now.

Travelers from three countries, sharing conversation and a meal, when we otherwise might have been dining alone – and none of that awkwardness of a blind date. Brought together by the Internet, we had a lot in common – most obviously, seeing the world and learning how things are done beyond the backyard. How is it that travelers can talk endlessly on such topics?

“This is what the Internet was meant for, connecting people,” Chris said as we drained the pitcher of vin rouge at the end of the evening, “Not for Ebay.”

And I’d have to agree with the Englishman that hitting up the information super highway to make travel friends offers as much as thumbing it on the open road when it comes to enhancing the travel experience.

- by Terry Ward