CURRENT MISSION

Placing yourself out of your comfort zone often helps you find your path

ABOUT ME

My name is Che, I am Australian and moved to Montreal, largely by accident but I really love it here. I am trying to learn French, and immersing myself as much as possible in the Francophone culture. I like to think that I have progressed since I arrived and walked into a cafe and demanded a prostitute by accident and later told a room full of people that I had tried having sex with my grandmother but she was not very good. I just want to point out that those things are not what I was trying to do. Sometimes I pretend I am Russian so people will not speak English with me. Apart from pretending to be from another country and that my name is Vladimir, I am a pretty down-to-earth honest guy. I wish the tectonic plates had aligned differently and Australia and Montreal were not so far apart.

PHILOSOPHY

I think everyone has an interesting story, so I'm not really shy to ask people targeted questions to find out what it is. My philosophy is that you should not be afraid of making mistakes. Hence, I fail all the time.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

My housemates and I are are all on couch surfing and between us we have hosted quite a few people. Montreal is a great couchsurfing city so I have enjoyed getting to know many of the other couchsurfers.

Interests

I like spending my time with my friends and doing activities with them. I also like traveling (evidently), the outdoors, learning new things, different cultures, photography, reading, the news, politics, science, running, ulimate frisbee, cooking but more the eating, board games, dancing out of rhythm, skating and now snowboarding (I have done it once).

• culture
• photography
• dancing
• cooking
• running
• politics
• news
• board games
• reading
• traveling
• outdoor activities
• surfing
• snowboarding
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

I like reading a lot, but these days I find I only get time to read about bacteria (I research them), things in French, the online news and the weather. Some of favourite books are The Kite Runner, Shantaram, Thousand Splendid Suns, The Power of One, The World According the Garp, The DiceMan and 1984.
Films: I like films where you get to see the world from another perspective. Examples are I am Sam, Slumdog Millionaire, Dangerous Minds, Whale Wider, The Power of One.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

After I finished my PhD I traveled through Asia for over a year with one of my friends. We improvised substantially along the way and had great difficulty leaving India because we liked the curries too much, and my passport got ruined in a monsoon. We did end up as extras in a Bollywood film, but the film turned out to be a complete flop.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you 7 different ways to throw a frisbee.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Canada, Croatia, Cuba, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Canada, Italy

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