I opened this account on the 20th of November 2015, following the advice of an Indian friend, and I'm truly grateful to her!

I came to India in November to work on an art project following the Maha Shakti Peetha.
It's now April, and I have just completed visiting all the 18 temples of the Maha Shakti Peetha.
Throughout the journey whenever I stayed with people through Couchsurfing, I had the most amazing time: they helped me enormously and at times without their help I could never have reached several temples.

Now that my journey is at it's end, I want to thank all the new friends I made for their hospitality and generosity and I hope I can in the future return their kindness in Athens, or NY.
Also I want to thank the founders of Couchsurfing who have created a tool that brings people together in the best way possible, and helped me discover that goodness has not left our world yet.

Update 2018 summer: so life is unexpected and I had a lovely son last year so I moved to Athens to raise him, his mom lives in Greece, so now I'm less in NY but have not left completely and hopefully I won't!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To meet local people and get to know more interesting things about life here!

Interests

Learning

• arts
• recipes
• swimming

Music, Movies, and Books

Classical western/Indian , opera, pop, bollyhood amongst many kinds of music.
From films I like from Andrei Rublev by Tarkovsky (best movie ever made probably) to Goynar Baksho by Aparna Sen (she's brilliant even if not the best)
Best books that everyone must read in their lifetime: Mahabharata (try the English translation by Kamala Subramaniam), The story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin (the five volume penguin edition), Searching for the time lost by Proust (original English translation)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Completing the Char Dham pilgrimage last year: Badrinath, Rameswaram, Dwarka, Puri. In Puri pulling the chariot of Jagannath during Ratha Yatra was an out of this world experience.

In Greece spending all my summers in our country-house when I was growing up only in bathing suits all day long swimming in the blue sea. Life then was simple, utter boredom and leisure was an ultimate goal. We never felt we had to do anything, except enjoy our heavenly nature with as little as possible.

Living in NY: despite the neurotic depressive attitude and general feeling of disillusionment and greed, still NY pushes you to discover who you truly are. It's sort of a mythological and superhuman place where, despite hard core materialism, something more than just everyday life takes place...

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach about art, learn local customs, share my experiences from all travels in India and further

What I Can Share with Hosts

Knowledge I guess, I can share also Greek recipes, or my art

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Cambodia, China, Cyprus, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Greece, India, United States