London

Experienced my first three nights of Couchsurfing – a place where hosts offer free couches to people like me who don’t much enjoy hotels while traveling alone. Couchsurfing.com is named aptly, except the case of Lynne’s flat, which is located about 40 minutes just outside London. Instead of a couch, she offers a cozy shabby chic bedroom. I’d give you her online ID at couchsurfing.com, but I feel the need to protect her. She’s an incredibly warm woman who has trouble saying no to potential surfers and now hosts guests an average of three nights a week.

For those who haven’t experienced it – and most of us haven’t – couchsurfing.com is the match.com of travel (without the matching in the classical sense). People sign up as hosts and/or travelers and post comprehensive profiles.

My friend Laura me about couchsurfing. She and her husband had just hosted their first guest and while they didn’t find him the most exciting person on the planet -- he was a physicist, after all --they said they’d do it again.

I went on-line and found Lynne, age 50, who had wonderful references. (One of the things that separates couchsurfing.com from similar sites is that guests rate their visits. It’s a bit like the reader reviews you can post at Amazon.com, but in a very cool twist, the hosts also review the visitors, which is a bit like allowing the author to review the critics. I know more than a few folks out there who’d appreciate that one.)

Departure: My flight from Los Angeles to London had not gotten off to a great start. It was an overnight trip and I’d planned for weeks to equip myself with Ambien. It wasn’t until I boarded the plane that I discovered the Ambien bottle bore a remarkable resemblance to the medication I take for a hyper-thyroid condition.

I was ever so slightly apoplectic when I discovered I didn’t have anything on-hand to induce sleep. I think my seatmate only heard the word “hyper” when I told him about my thyroid condition and he quickly offered me one of his own Ambien. He had a few, but I think he would have offered me his last. The idea of spending the night with a hyper woman was more than he (or I, frankly) could have dealt with.

Arrival: Like many tourists, I packed far more luggage than I should have – even for a six month trip. That, combined with the fact that I’m incredibly frugal (downright cheap, in fact) prompted me to attempt the Underground with a 49 pound canvas bag on rollers, a 32 pound bag canvas bag not on rollers, a camera bag with two cameras and full of equipment, as well as an 18 backpack complete with laptop.

I arrived in London at 2:30 pm and spent more than two hours in the immigration line, where I met so many people that I actually ran into one of them on the streets of London the following morning. We had breakfast. Lynn later told me that she had never in her life run into a friend casually on the streets of London. Well, we had enough time in the immigration line to meet lots, and lots of people. At that point, I probably had as many friends as Lynn had.

Turns out that clearing customs was just the beginning of the nightmare. T took 90 minutes lugging four pieces of luggage through numerous train transfers and no fewer than five terrifying luggage-filled escalator rides (they don’t seem to have elevators), I emerged (again on an escalator) to meet Lynne for coffee before “hopping the bus” home.

All told, the transfer from Los Angeles to London had clocked in at about the travel time as my transfer from London to Lynne’s. I arrived jet-lagged and a sweaty mess. Not the way to make the best impression, but Lynne cooked up a dandy dose of pasta and we shared a bottle of Italian sparkling wine – think Champaign without the attitude or price – before I fell into bed.

Of course, didn’t sleep a whit because my body had absolutely no idea what time it was. This is why Jeff Greenfield had told me, just two weeks before leaving, not to take a sleeping pill before departing. (Let’s admit it, though: the guy also recommends Fed Exing your luggage to your hotel. As the correspondent for the Today show, you can only assume that he’s got a car – rather than the Underground – waiting for him at arrival and that he’s traveling something other than economy class. And he’s got to have some sort of key to the city (make that the country) that allows him to bypass the two-hour immigration line.

The great thing about couchsurfing is that you get to see the city through the eyes of your host. If you weren’t lucky enough to participate in a foreign exchange program in high school (I applied but was rejected), this is even better. For one thing, you are a grown up so you can join your host for bottle of Italian sparkling wine. For another, as tired as you might be, you will somehow summon the energy to get out and see the city.

Having not slept for something like 42 hours (not even the Ambien was going to help me on that flight), I was awake at 6 am and join Lynne for her journey to work. It turned out that trip was probably the highlight. After taking the bus – she detests the Underground as much as I now did – we got off at a stop that allowed us to walk through St. Johns Garden, where we stopped to feed the swans, as she does every morning.

That afternoon, I took a river tour – a favorite from childhood memory when I visited here more years ago than I’m going to admit. Once there, I make up on the sleep I had lost on the plane. I sat down on the bench and unconsciously put chin to chest as the tour guide began what I’m absolutely certain was a fascinating walk through London’s architecture and history. When I awoke a couple of hours later, I tried it play it off that I’d been in a meditative state listening deeply to every word, but I don’t think he believed it.

The rest of three day stay in London was a bit of a blur until I arrived to the British Airways lounge four hours prior to departure for Cape Town South Africa. After spending two-hours getting into the country and another two hours getting into London, Lynne and I had decided to change strategy. I took the bus – this time with even MORE luggage, thanks to a bizarre British Airways baggage restriction that isn’t worth going into here and whisked my way through check-in. In another bizarre, but outstanding, twist, British Airways provides American Airlines very frequent fliers free access to their club. At nearly one million miles, I qualified.

For those who study these things, British Airways offers one of the best clubs in the circuit. A “sanctuary room” has couches that can serve as beds. They even provide wake up calls. Then there’s a free buffet and open bar, which I didn’t discover until I’d awakened from my nap and was headed out for my next overnight flight.

This time I brought the Ambien.