CURRENT MISSION

Never let the fire grow cold!

ABOUT ME

To be filled out just as soon as I discover all about who I am ;)

PHILOSOPHY

The bane of mankind is life in a drone state, being like all the rest and seeing nothing wrong with it, fanaticism, staying on the beaten path, and life in a bubble. Life without (a) passion is not worth living, but for something to live for, something must be sacrificed.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Potentially: via couch, via bed, via floor, via doing what I can to accommodate weary travelers, meeting CSers and helping them meet.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Trying to keep the balance between hosting and surfing. And of course a few CS meetings here and there.

Interests

Learning languages (next stops on this line: Farsi, Arabic, Italian, potentially Yucatec Maya, Slovak and Mandarin Chinese, but this bus don't terminate here, son)

Journalism (in dreams and future plans)

War and genocide and what pushes people to hibernate or forgo their humanity

Latin America (emphasis on Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and the Andean West)

Experiencing things that move me

Religion (despite or because of my professed atheism)

Books (ah, if only time were endless)

The Roaring Twenties

The Mexican Revolution

Ambience

Night

Concentration

Noir and smoke in a bar

Tex-Mex and Americana

Leaving sleep for another day

Self-sufficiency

Self-discovery

Dancing until the world goes dim

Eye-opening conversations

Surrealist art

Hitchhiking

Symbolic and postapocalyptic fiction

Some Poe-etry

Translating and interpreting

Studying

Being a true friend and having one.

This of course is the nutshell version ;)

• arts
• books
• dancing
• cooking
• surfing
• journalism
• languages
• religion
• hitchhiking

Music, Movies, and Books

Ah, the eternal question. Everyone's tastes change as they go along in life, and I don't want to be trite and say I have both ears wide open and listen to EVERYTHING.

In MUSIC, I am or have been particularly fond of: Electro Swing (think Parov Stelar, Caravan Palace, Kormac, and anything that fuses together numbers from the 20s and 30s with modernity); Ambient, Instrumental and Industrial (Cisfinitum, Deaf Center, Teargas & Plateglass, Land, Brian Eno, and the road goes on forever); contemporary composers (Max Richter); corridos from the Mexican Revolution; Tex-Mex (Calexico); OSTs of anything and everything, with a penchant for unabashedly epic western movie soundtracks; anything that is somber and melancholy and makes me think of 2 AM (The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, Bohren & Der Club of Gore); game soundtracks for the sheer nostalgia of it all; (Gothic) Americana (William Elliott Whitmore, Strawfoot), Country (Outlaw Country and Johnny Cash, in the past) and Rockabilly; field recordings and so-called "world music"; all things quirky; re-creations of music lost and disappeared (a big yes to innovative peculiarities like Antonio Zepeda and a big no to cheap New Age riding the "mystery of the ancient culture" wave); anything that makes the ear twitch and the soul vibrate; mood music that envelops you and challenges your imagination.

In MOVIES: Westerns, Noir and Neo-Noir, The Vengeance Trilogy and more that would make me feel like an overexcited 13-year-old if I listed them all ;) Suffice to say: "artsy" without being pretentious, and far from anything resembling the most dreaded hellspawn genre of all - the romantic comedy.

In BOOKS: Anything I have the patience to read. Stephen King, Clive Barker, Horacio Quiroga, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack Kerouac, Neil Gaiman, Lewis Carroll, to name a few.

In EVERYTHING: Dystopian, quirky, mechanical, unsettling fiction.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I have witnessed a globe the size of a 5-story house ride the desert sands on tires the size of monster trucks.

Teach, Learn, Share

Languages! I'll give you what I got if you give me what you got, and hell yes I am interested in it :).

I will place you in my personal pantheon if you manage to teach me to cook something, especially if it's your local cuisine. Beware, others have tried repeatedly! With some trial and error, I can also make a few more or less traditional dishes. And I hereby proudly announce that CouchSurfing has taught me the difference between sodium bicarbonate and salt.

Countries I’ve Visited

Egypt, France, Hungary, Mexico, Oman, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belgium, Israel, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, United States

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