CURRENT MISSION

I exist to spread joy. My smile is contagious.

ABOUT ME

I wear my inner child on the outside.

My parents never taught me to stay away from strangers. Without shyness or fear of embarrassment, I love making friends, sharing stories, and creating new ones.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Although I have plenty of experience hosting and surfing among my real-life social network, I'm relatively new to The CouchSurfing Project.

I'm friendly and fun to be around. I'm also a very gracious guest, and happy to share as much of myself and my culture as I can.

I'm also looking forward to hosting other travelers.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've had some fantastic CS experiences so far, including:

- Spending the better part of a week in Viterbo, Italy with my friend Nico and our host Andrea. We traveled through both the city and countryside, sharing long Italian meals with our new friends;

- Two nights near Cinque Terre with my host Marco. We spent a relaxing afternoon walking through Cinque Terre and caught a train together to Milan the next day; and

- Two nights in Lake Como, Italy with another host named Marco. My time with Marco was one I will never forget. Marco and his friends instantly clicked with me. We cooked, we went out, and I rode on the back of a motorino for the first time ever. Marco and his family were the epitome of foreign hospitality, and set a high standard for when I can start hosting others.

- Like many of you, I haven't yet found a city to call home. On a whim, I recently made my way up to Portland, OR. I've met friends here faster than any other place I've lived, and many of them I've met through this very project.

Interests

I enjoy making things.

One of my projects is a collaborative storyboarding tool. It helps the artists who make television cartoons organize their stories and work with one another more easily. I made some friends at Disney and was showing them what I was working on, when one of them showed me this:

http://ted.com/talks/jeff_han_demos_his_breakthrough_touchscreen.html

That summer, I built a multitouch table like the one in the video.

For my next project, I'd like to build a small robot that drives around public spaces, snaps pictures of random people, and draws them on an Etch-a-Sketch.

I also enjoy sharing with other entrepreneurs. During the time I spent in Silicon Valley, I created a social club called Entresting, for entrepreneurs and other interesting people to take a break, have a drink, and befriend other entrepreneurs.

• culture
• dining
• cooking
• chocolate
• cheese
• potluck
• running
• walking
• drinking
• clubbing
• cartoons
• traveling
• outdoor activities
• backpacking
• surfing
• emergency services

Music, Movies, and Books

I'm not much for picking favorites. Much of what I listen to could be described as punk, indie, or melodic hardcore. I've recently become especially fond of synthpop. In movies, I prefer silly/absurdist comedies an occasional thought-provoking sci-fi film. Appropriately, my favorite fiction authors are Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

There are plenty of stories I could include here, but perhaps the most appropriate one occurred recently, on my twenty-third birthday, which I spent backpacking with my best friend through Italy.

Nico and I were traveling through Rome, having just spent a week in Viterbo where he had studied for a year in college. We decided that we wanted to host an international potluck in a public space, where people from all over the world could come together and share food from foreign lands.

We originally had planned to host in Piazza Navona, but due to the rain we instead sought the slightly-more-sheltered Villa Borghese.

Nico and I created tacos while our Italian friend Giuliana baked tiramisu. She needed chocolate and we cheese, so Giuliana and I made a quick trip to the grocery store before returning to the apartment to finish cooking. Nico and I had posted an announcement on CouchSurfing, inviting any travelers in the area to join us at 6 pm.

As we tossed our concoctions in a grocery bag and headed for the door, Giuliana noticed something. Since the 'tortillas' at the grocery store looked unappetizing, Nico and I had selected piatti instead, which looked identical to American flour tortillas.

Giuliana: "You have to cook those."

Us; "Really? Look at them. They have scorch marks and everything."

Giuliana: "No really - taste them."

Me, after tearing off a corner and placing it in my mouth: "Crap, she's right."

Nico ran to the subway with the food we had so far while Giuliana and I finished the tiramisu and cooked the tortillas. This setback, coupled with the rain and the lack of ample parking in downtown Rome, meant that Giu and I didn't arrive until nearly 7. Coincidentally, Nico was also running late and entered the gardens shortly before we arrived.

He discovered that a gate surrounding an outdoor dining area was unlocked. Over the phone, he guided us to his location, where we met two of his Swiss roommates and a random French girl who found our announcement on CS.

The group had circled around a table. I faced out over the city, while my friends looked through the gate into the gardens.

As we finished the tacos, the group grew silent. Their gazes shifted away from each other while a blue glow tinted their foreheads. I turned to find a police motorcase driving through the gardens, directly behind our only path to freedom.

Nervously, the Swiss couple insisted that we hide all the food under the table and sit as quietly as possible. We sat there, passing excited smiles and hushed giggles to one another when Giuliana's phone rang. She boisterously answered, with the volume of a true Italian, "pronto!"

While she chatted, we noticed the gate behind us had remained relatively docile. Gathering the food, we snuck through and spillled out onto the Spanish Steps, where we enjoyed my homemade birthday tiramisu while overlooking Rome by moonlight.

Giuliana taking the call:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=44145044&l=89a21e350c&id=3406485

The motorcade:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=44145046&l=a43487058b&id=3406485

After the escape:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=44145049&l=e9caffedda&id=3406485
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=44145050&l=8aafefdc19&id=3406485

Countries I’ve Visited

Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Philippines, Spain, Sweden

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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