A. Firstly, there are the profiles.
B. They cost a fortune!
C. Luckily, she seemed to like what we'd written, too.
D. By the time my boyfriend came home from his Saturday job, it was spotless.
E. Well, yes and no. It isn't for everyone.
F. A flat above an all-night bar didn't make the list, either.
G. What if they make a mess?
H. Thanks to them, we discovered a wonderful jazz café - and a roller disco!

It was the night before my holiday and I was already exhausted. I’d just spent the whole day frantically cleaning the flat. (1)________________I’d even dusted the lights!
My easier-going other half found my efforts very amusing. ‘Aren’t holidays meant to be relaxing?’ he asked.
We’d joined HouseExchange.com a few weeks ago, when we’d been searching for cheap holidays online. Package holidays were out of the question. (2)_____________I’m a student nurse and Max is a musician, so money is tight. But HouseExchange.com allows you to stay in someone's home in a beautiful tourist destination - for free!
So what’s the catch? Well, while you’re away, strangers will be staying in your home. (3) _______________Or laugh at your bad taste in furniture? The worries don’t end there. What if you don’t like their home? It’s important to choose your house swap with care! HouseExchange.com is a bit like a dating service in two respects. (4)________________Everyone has to write one of these in order to ‘sell’ their home and neighbourhood. Secondly, site users are often quite fussy! After all, few of us want to swap with just ‘anyone’. For this reason, I’m afraid I rejected the home of a charming middle-aged couple, who had a rules list that was thirty pages long! (5)_______________I even dismissed an exquisite house in the heart of Paris ‘which you can share with my pet snakes' - for obvious reasons. However, Rika's Berlin flat looked stylish and clean in the photos - and Rika herself sounded refreshingly ‘normal’!
(6) _______________At least, she sounded very positive!
I think the house-swap worked out well for all of us. We admired Rika’s amazing collection of art and she said she loved our stylish ‘retro' furniture (I think she was being kind - we bought it second-hand because it was cheap!). As well as all the benefits of staying in a home-from- home, house swapping is a great way to feel like a local on holiday. Many of Rika’s neighbours said ‘hello’, and recommended places to visit. (7)_______________Neither were mentioned in the guidebook, so we felt like real ‘explorers'.
Would I recommend it? (8) ______________Being open-minded is a must and yes, you do have to be prepared to do quite a bit of housework before you travel! But as a way to travel for virtually nothing, you can’t beat it!