CURRENT MISSION

To travel, to learn, to eat, and whatever else seems interesting at the time

ABOUT ME

I love learning, reading and food (preferably shared amongst friends). I love to travel because it combines all these things - learning about new people and places, reading on the trains, planes and buses that get me where I'm going, and eating new food. I'm studying art history at university at the moment, but more importantly I'm trying to figure out what I should do with my future - I'm lucky enough to have many choices and options available to me, and I want to make sure my life is worthwhile, fulfilling, and fun.

PHILOSOPHY

It's hard to put into words, and some of this will be wrong in some situations.. but here we go. Make as many people happy as you can without compromising your own happiness too much. Challenge yourself, try new things, enjoy yourself, see the best, try to help. Be genuine, and mean what you say.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've never used the couchsurfing website before, although I've been meaning to for a long time. I hope to be able to stay with or meet some of the very generous couchsurfing community on my travels, and as soon as I have a settled address I hope to have some intrepid travellers to stay with me!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have never used the 'official' couchsurfing before, but have found myself the lucky recipient of many stranger's hospitality through the years. I travelled for nine months after finishing highschool and stayed with family, friends, friends of friends, and friends' families' ex-girlfriends - all of which were fantastic experiences.

Interests

I have rather a lot of interests. As mentioned before, travelling, books and food are big ones, but others are almost as important: art, cycling, walking and hiking, dancing (badly, but enthusiastically), photography, history, cinema, sewing, the sciences (although I'm doing arts at uni at the moment, I started in science - I've dipped my toes into maths, physics, biology, psychology and geology - I know enough to know I'd like to know more), theatre, beautiful design, Stephen Fry... I could go on, but I've got to stop somewhere.

• arts
• writing
• books
• design
• photography
• dancing
• dining
• walking
• flying
• flowers
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• cycling
• hiking
• art history
• biology
• geology
• history
• mathematics
• physics
• psychology
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Sorry, but it's way too much, I'm actually giving me a bit of a panic attack in case I miss out something important. And I really do love so many movies and books and music, across all genres. But I'll try, for your sakes.

Movies:
A Bout de Souffle
A Serious Man - representing the Coen brothers
Aliens (and the others, but 2 is my fave)
Amelie
Cinema Paridisio
Death Proof & Django Unchained- representing Tarentino
Doctor Strangelove
Full Metal Jacket
Hairspray (my boyfriend will tell you this is my favourite ever, because he thinks it's the most embarrassing - it's not, but it is very enjoyable)
Lord of the Ringses
Pans Labyrinth
Rear Window - representing Hitchcock
Singing in the Rain
Some Like it Hot
Sin City, representing graphic novel movies in general
The Boat that Rocked
The Muppets movie
Toy Story, plus all the Pixar short films

Music:
So hard to choose, again! I tried to come up with a shortlist, but I can't - I might listen to the Hairspray and Death Proof sound tracks while I wash up, Justice or Girl Talk as I tidy, Betty Carter or Ella Fitzgerald as I hang up the washing, classical music (Yo-yo playing Bach's cello suites maybe) or Leonard Cohen while I'm having a bath, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, or Cat Empire for a road trip - Motown, Soul, Jazz, Pop, Blues, Rock, Indie, Gangster Rap - they all turn up among my favourites.

Books:
All of them! Really, really, so many more than I can list. (As you might realise, I'm not the best at making decisions and picking favourites)
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
Thursday Next series - Jasper Fforde
Emma - Jane Austen
Agatha Christie (no point picking one, they're all the same - but I love them)
Stasiland - Anna Funder
Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Harry Potter - Rowling
For Bill Bryson I can't pick one book - they're all too good.
Psmith, Journalist - Wodehouse
Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency - McCall Smith
Golden Gate - Vikram Seth
On Food and Cooking - Harold McGee
The Lives of the Artists - Georgio Vasari
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

So many, many amazing things - one thing that stands out, as a stand alone event, was visiting The Lightning Fields in New Mexico, which is an artwork by Walter De Maria. I call it an artwork, but it's more like an experience - booking months in advance, flying to Albuquerque, driving through red desert, passing isolated casinos and distorted mesas. We arrived in a 3 house 1 diner town, got driven from there with one other couple into the middle of nowhere, to a three bedroom wooden cabin, and left there. When the dust cloud from the jeep that dropped us off was gone, the only man-made structures that could be seen in the wide empty landscape was a solitary farm windmill, the cabin, and behind it the Lightning Fields themselves - which I won't spoil for you. We stayed and watched the lightning fields change as the sun moved, inspected all the shrubs and grubs and flowers of the recently rained on desert. We stayed there over night and got picked up again the next day - an unforgettable experience for so many reasons.

Teach, Learn, Share

I am more than happy to try and teach anything I know about - and I know bits and pieces about lots of things, having done about 16 first year university subjects in completely different areas - see my interests for an idea of the range. I feel pretty confident I can pass on at least some useful knowledge about food and art, and I can definitely help with English, essay writing and proof reading, but I have much more capacity to learn than to teach!

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Monaco, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, United Kingdom