That girl with a sketchbook: people

In Sopot going out is quite easy. It even more exciting when you have a sketchbook and another sketcher with you.

Every Thursday in Instytut Spraw Wszelakich in Sopot there are language exchange aka. Couchsurfing events. The idea is quite well known.
1. Couchsurfing events gather members of the website www.couchsurfing.org from here or visitors meet together for chip-chap
2. Language Exchange usually gathers people who want to practice foreign language.

In short. These people want to talk! In Sopot this is 2 in 1 event, but still not perfect. If you travels, you may know these kind of events from other cities. I happen to participate already in Łódź, Poznań, Berlin and Cologne or various cities where I traveled to.

My experience with CouchSurfing lasts for good 7 years already, so no wonder that I was looking forward to check out how these meetings look in Tricity. If you are new in town, that is often the place where you can find friends and insight into the city, that you are going to make your own.

Are we the same group? Really?

I must admit. I was disappointed for couple of reasons.

1. Too loud. Dear DJ - you were great! I have heard Bookashade couple of years ago, and it was there that night! I loved it! Nonetheless, how you can talk when it's loud?

2. Unfamiliar space - tables do not support conversations, because you cannot change your place. The puffs, however, were arranged like for some couples. And why couchsurfers come to these events? To talk, to sit with other people, to move their places in order to talk with one or the other person (not the same one for all the time). Well...impossible there.

3. Expensive. The most expensive beer I have had in Tricity! (8 zł for draught beer plus 1zl if you want a juice). No discount at the bar. In all cities, organisers ensure discount at least for one brand of the beer. They give it even in Belgrade in Serbia (greets for that wonderful community in Belgrade. Felt like home there from the very first time)! Well, this is the case in Instytut Spraw Wszelakich. I have asked myself couple of times, why this event is in there, actually? In Poznan some years ago, I happened to organise several events like that and for people prices and loudness were the important qualities of the place.
- You want to earn on us? Well, give something in exchange!

4. No community. There were actually two separate groups that did not know that had join the very same meeting! There was even no paper or no hint at the bar - Language Exchange people are sitting over there. We put our own paper, but the idea is to recognise each other easily. Nothing like that there.

Probably my experience from Łódź Language Exchange Club is simply too amazing. If you happen to be in Łódź, do not omit Thursdays at 20:00 in Szósta Dzielnica. Wonderful people who are so easy to make friends with. I love also the idea, that everyone gets a sticker where s/he can put name and the spoken languages in it. Thanks to that, I met so many fantastic people including two wonderful boys from Ukraine who has been teaching me the whole month Russian in exchange for English! Once I got even a copy of Sigmund Freud's analysis with request for help for translation! Beautiful event if you are linguist (if you come to such events, you probably enjoy languages at least a bit).

I don't want to be only critical - so let us make it a bit more constructive.

Music was cool!

People who came were great!

I sketched a lot (loved red lights!)

Let's meet more often and get on well better!!!

I was quite happy to welcome for the second time that girl with a sketchbook (here more about that). Of course we had no choice than sketch! DJ was a good subject - expressive characteristic hair and barely moving - perfect model! Niuta's version was really nice (I forgot to take picture, sorry). As for me - this is only this week when I started to try more often with drawing people. Very challenging, particularly if you sketched cathedrals and bridges, like me! For these reason sketching together with Niuta was very pleasant. She kept encouraging me to take those challenges - no wonder that there were couple of sketches from that evening that I can present.

DJ Ertel - my first sketch that night

Another challenge was time - Niuta's portrays are very quick. Less than 10 minutes each! Although we used different tools (crayons vs. ink), I did my best to keep up that pace. Crazy really, but also inspirational!. I usually give myself minimum 30-45 minutes for a sketch as I love to make it slow and think about each line!

To sum up, event was really nice and I hope it will continue to happen here or anywhere else.
If you were interested to join us, go to Couchsurfing Tricity group (www.couchsurfing.org) or join facebook group Language Exchange Trójmiasto- there are the most updated information.

Below some more sketches of me and Niuta!
Enjoy!