Today I e-mailed 5 people something along the lines of "thanks for your offer of letting me stay at your place for free, but no thanks". Huh? What has happened - have I lost my mind or won the lottery? No, I just joined a website called Global Freeloaders some time ago. The principle is quite simple: you let people e-mail you requesting free accommodation at your place (I almost hosted a Dutch couple once, but they had to cancel their trip at the last minute), and in return you can e-mail others to ask for the same on your travels. So I got in touch with everyone from this site living in Leipzig and Moscow, thinking I would be lucky to get one reply, especially from Leipzig where I will be for a week, but I got several from both cities! So I accepted the offer from the first person to e-mail me in each last week, and today e-mailed all the others to say thanks but no thanks. There are a lot of good, hospitable people out there!