CURRENT MISSION

To reconcile the life I have with the life I want. Oh, and to fill up my new passport.

ABOUT ME

Loaded question. I talk A LOT, and if it tells you anything, the character limits in most of the CS profile fields have been pretty restrictive for me. The quick version - I am 43 and female, and I got addicted to Couchsurfing while I was living/working in London during 2007-08. I relocated to Iowa in 2015 and my hosting requests dried up. I’ve not had much opportunity to travel since my first child was born, but now that all 3 of my babies are a little older I’m ready to hit the road again!

PHILOSOPHY

Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING
When I lived downtown (London UK / Chicago IL) I loved hosting and staying with locals whenever I traveled.

So far the Couch Surfing community has more than returned the favor by hooking me up with locals on my World Travels. It is great not to pay for a hotel, and even better to meet people that can point me at an experience that isn't in the tour books, and better still to make friends that I can be in touch with years later. I love Couchsurfing.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I was very active for years before moving to the middle of nowhere and having 3 kids in 2 years…. if someone actually needs a place to stay in my neck of the woods I’d love to help out… but they call this a fly-over state for a reason.

Interests

I love travel, and I can get sucked into a debate about almost anything. I love coffee and animals and trees. I read pretty much constantly and I love talking about books. I love good food, live music and interesting people. I love playing with kids, and flying kites. I'm a movie buff, with a real penchant for BAD horror movies, you know the predictable campy kind. To sum up, I am very easily entertained, and this list could go on forever.

• books
• dining
• coffee
• flying
• flowers
• movies
• traveling
• socializing
• music
• live music
• surfing
• boxing

Music, Movies, and Books

This would take forever. I simply can't. I will say that the last movie I saw was on an airplane and I had no choice in the matter. I have a little of everything in my music collection, but Jazz and hard rock are probably the two biggest genres.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I visited the ancient Turkish Baths in Istanbul and splurged on the 'Sultan Treatment' where I sat in a marble steam room that was more than 1,000 years old and a Turkish woman in a bathing suit scrubbed me from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair. That was pretty amazing.

Teach, Learn, Share

One of Ecuador's biggest exports is Roses, if you find yourself there, get to a flower market one morning, the images and the smells will stay with you forever.

If you are in New York or Chicago and it suddenly starts to rain, duck into the first sit-down restaurant/bar/cafe you come to and say "I was in here the other day and I left a little black umbrella" They'll give you a box to choose from.

Giordanno's is the best pizza in Chicago. I don't care what anyone else says.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Zimbabwe

Countries I’ve Lived In

Ecuador, United Kingdom, United States

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