just ring the doorbell and say @#$%^

In the five days time from the phone call to flight I had misplaced the paper with the address, me being an optimist said "no big deal everyone there probably knows what casa robino is I'll just ask someone when we arrive".

I came across this blog-post of Gary who apparently stayed with us last Summer (and took a plain for that purpose).

I was immediately introduced to everyone and explained the casa rules. The rules are no meat in the house. Everything else is up to you. That's exactly what it was: up to us. You come and go as you please, hope to have a bed at night and treat the casa as if it were your own. You want the floor to be clean then vacuum your hungry cook, you don't like the picture on the wall take it down and paint a new one.

I had a blast and for anybody who loves to travel and has an open mind should check this place out, casarobino.org

Uh-m.

Comments

henkeq's picture

Funny thing...

I was actually there during the same time. Arrived one or two days before.
I was out on my euro/asia tour and a friend(Taliah, crasy swedish girl) had stayed at the Casa during the summer. So she wrote a letter to the Casa to thank for her stay and to maybe get me in for a couple of nights as I was passing thru in europe.
I ended up having a wonderful time at the Casa, cooking lots of food. And I remember it being extremly crowed cus there was alot of people that hadn't really told the house that they were comming. (I hadn't either, I didnt know.) But I was invited in anywasy and spent 5 days at the house and at the end people asked why I was leaving already. That felt really good.
As soon as I get a bigger apartment Im gonna start a sustaninable living in Sweden in Lund aswell. It's a uni town so I know the house/apartment will always be packed with people.

Anyway, thanks for all the ideas and being part of the house. Just for a couple of days.

Ps. I think i would be good if you had some kind of donation thingy on the homepage, were as I didnt have any money when I was out traveling, now I do and somehow want to contribute to the house.

Ds. Lots of love!

sarah's picture

I think I understand better

I think I understand better now.

I also had pretty much the same introduction to the casa as the one Gary had, although it started one sunny afternoon by sitting together with people around a table, some of them painting, some simply sitting/reclining, some chatting.

The one "rule" I was told which I found meaningful is "not to expect people to tell you what you should do", which can apply to anything, not only to the house... It is liberating to actually look for the "right" thing to do from within and not just wait for orders to fall out of nowhere. Still, I must say I was glad I already had this training while working as a waitress because it took me a while to understand it and I still reckon it is not easy!

Davide's comment is true, I think. It is probably necessary for the casa to filter the people who are staying/visiting, especially in terms of quantity. But it is not so interesting if it limits itself only to people who are already convinced and who one think they would fit the mold. It's impossible to know beforehand who will be touched and changed by an experience like living at the casa. Nevertheless I believe things can never be the same once you've experienced something, so it's worth letting "random" people in :)

What does "random" mean, anyway...

dcarpano's picture

Hm

I do not understand whether this is an attempt at creative criticism or not. But first off, although I disagree with takings planes for certain reasons I think that it must also be understood that not everyone is in the same position that we are in the fact that we are more free to hitchhike to the places we wish to go to and dumpster dive the food we wish to eat, many people, including myself, have not, or had not, ever been exposed to this lifestyle, and if not for some phone call to some place like casa robino, that had, by chance, been accepted, they would never even know about it. Simply put, 'random' events such as this one can change lives, and the amount of carbon released on that one flight could cause much less being produced in the future.

This aside I think that the 'rules' stated in this were probably misinterpreted more than anything. First off, rules?! What are those?! Secondly, I mean, theoretically in the house I think that one does have the 'right' to take down what he or she does not like and replace it, but people must always be respectful of others and of the house, so really in the end it is more about common sense than about carefully laid out rules and regulations.
I also think that one of the best things about the casa are its spontaneity, the fact that sometimes people just call at the right moment and end up coming by, and that this affects their lives. Granted, this cannot happen all of the time. The thing is, I do not think that it does, and I do not think that it should, but it is pretty cool that stories like this end up on 'random' blogs.

Jass's picture

All of that is true. But at

All of that is true.
But at the same time it takes a great deal of energy and commitment to nourish; to share, to teach, to be sensitive to the environment around us. Flying out to Amsterdam just for the purpose of learning about a sustainable project in terms of meaningful & eco friendly travel, community and sharing seems to be an incredible paradox.
Do we really want to support that? Then again, how many business men fly twice, thrice a week without a singular thought on the matter?
But, I think, yes, how important it is to have people further back on the path than others..but, too, it comes hand in hand with sharing, what has the other got to share with the casa that can benefit us as a whole? We have to be sensitive to that, too, to look after and nurture the atmosphere around us, our interactions, our alone time, our 'space'. Sanity is quite vital, sometimes.

The whole blog post seems to be a little too simplistic, but it's really wonderful to read something exterior to casa, sometimes..;)

meatbal17's picture

What im trying to say is...

Their is more out there then the daily grind. That you don;t to go through life in a 9-5 nor do you need live a total nomadic life. I want people to realize their are people out there doing great things to change the way we look at life to learn more and take less for granted. My trip casa from italy was a 5 day trip . we took a plane because thats how we did it. my cousin in italy that i just met lives the stereotype of italy. He does nothing for himself consumed by anything that consumes and i thought it would be great for him to flip his world upside down. and it was after casa robino he now does his own dishes cleans up after himself cooks! i made this post because i wanted people to hear about it. i dont make money on the site it is just a journal that i keep that people happen to read . im by all means not a professional writer. you may not get what im trying to say but many people have. I keep my site positive and thought the casa was also? i can remove it if you would like just wanted to drive traffic to your site and get people interested in change at the same time.

Mirto's picture

and even cooks?

"and it was after casa robino he now does his own dishes cleans up after himself cooks!"

then we should send half of our housemates to the Casa, so when they are back all our problems would be gone!

robino's picture

let me first say I like your

let me first say I like your post. It is a fun read. I also like that you came here and give your comment. Appreciate that. I also like your nickname by the way. I was in Barcelona when you signed up and had a great laugh about it.

Though there are some things that struck me. First of the plane. Yes. That is an issue for me. If I would have known and I would have been in the casa, I would have said: "sorry". This for a very simple reason: you made the casa suddenly be responsible for a lot more carbon dioxide than ever before... I don't know many people who specifically for the purpose of visiting the casa have been flying to get here... (there are some I know..)

Another thing doesn't apply to you but rather to who was here at that time. It concerns how you were told there was space for you to come to the house, in such a simple way. I wonder who answered the phone here and I wonder about the intentions of simply saying "yes" to you guys (and as you write it, without much prior info about yourselves). Maybe things were done like this over the summer, but if we would treat all incoming calls like this, the place would go crazy.. ;)

Also, it was fun to read that you were told: "you don't like the picture on the wall take it down and paint a new one." Because that's not really how we try to do things (although some people think differently about this) ...

Then again, it is fun to suddenly get random people like yourself and your cousin over. There are times the crowd is better able to integrate that than other times though... And I totally think it is a great thing that the experience here has helped your cousin in being a more independent thinker and who does things with clearer intentions now. It makes me wonder, how many of these houses we actually should/ could set up as life-learning environments to have a world with more inter/independent people who care more about themselves and their surroundings.

Anyway. I loved your posting. It is a fun read of a casa-experience - and I wished you actually had also posted it here... !

meatbal17's picture

uah

NOW THATS THE CASA !

sarah's picture

Hey Robin, what do you

Hey Robin,
what do you actually think of what the guy is saying? (apart from the fact he took a plane, of course...) I'm not sure I get it...

atopia's picture

no comment?

Anarchy, right?
Maybe CS could send one of their lovely "General News" about the casa :) The last one ("Meet CouchSurfers for Exploration, Sports, Parties, and More") was (correctly) flagged as spam by my filter system.