ABOUT ME

I'm Bulgarian, and grew up in New York City. I guess that CA is now home, almost 17 years here.

I've studied landscape design, environmental planning and PLANTS! I work with plants in many ways - I design, install and care for gardens; I wildcraft for medicinal herbs and wild edible plants; I glean and forage the edible bounty of the places that I move through; and I also work seasonally as a botanist for federal agencies.

And in my ideal life, I would run away and travel non-stop, eating fruit.

PHILOSOPHY

I'm a big believer in kindness among friends and strangers. Couchsurfing affirms this philosophy and reaffirms my faith in humanity. Seriously.

I also love to meet new people from different cultures and backgrounds because it makes me feel more at home - I grew up in an immigrant community in NYC, and have lived in diverse communities throughout my life. For 4 years in my 20's, I lived in a yoga retreat center and intentional community where my "family" included about 100 people from all over the world, of all different ages and life experiences. I've lived in the Bronx, and Vallejo - both, a far cry from both the yoga utopia but still places where I felt at home. As Tom Waits wails "anywhere, anywhere I lay my head down, I call home."

And I believe in food, especially food that grows from plants or has been cultured. I love to cultivate a close connection to food - foraging, fishing, growing, gleaning, fermenting, preparing, sharing...

Finally, I love plants - amen for plants! Where would we be without them?!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've hosted, surfed and participated in CS social get-togethers.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Always wonderful!

Interests

plants in all their forms
landscapes
food + sustainable agriculture
the immigrant experience
Eastern Europe
backpacking
photography
yoga + meditation
reading + writing (esp creative non-fiction)

• writing
• design
• photography
• dining
• cooking
• yoga
• running
• meditation
• gardening
• reading
• traveling
• fishing
• backpacking
• swimming
• agriculture

Music, Movies, and Books

this is just a sampler...

books: Gilead; The Autobiography of Water; Dakota: A Spiritual Geography; The Monk Downstairs; Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith; The Inheritance of Loss; Walden: A Life in the Woods; On Chesil Beach;

music: dengue fever; tom waits; the arcade fire; cocorosie; regina spektor; jolie holland. now - fado!

movies: la lengua de las mariposas; The Crime of Father Amarao; Pan's Labyrinth; Amores Perros; off the map; down by law; all about eve; all about my mother; babette´s feast; in america; midnight cowboy; urban cowboy. anything with cowboys really.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

So many...

but here's one: I set a golden leaf afloat down a creek one autumn. On top, I balanced a miniature cairn of pebbles. as I watched it drift downstream, a pair of dragonflies perched on top of the cairn, which was on the floating leaf, and mated. Top that, Andy Goldsworthy.

And more recently: working as a botanist in the Alaskan bush, swimming with wild dolphins in NZ... And backpacking through Japan - everything there was phenomenal even the leeches on Yakushima!!

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach:
botany
some herbalism
foraging and wildcrafting skills
gardening skills
do it yourself skills: yoghurt-, kombucha-, ghee-making
intermediate Bulgarian
basic French

I wish to learn:
everything that life has to teach me.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I'm a pretty decent cook and gardener! I can show you how to make some common fermented foods: kombucha, saurkraut, kefir, yohgurt.

Countries I’ve Visited

Algeria, Bulgaria, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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