It is always difficult to talk about oneself, but I will start here by giving some facts: I live in a Northern suburb from Sydney with my husband. We have three children, but unfortunately, they are as much travelers as their parents. Therefore, both of our daughters left straight after their HSC (end of high school in Australia). Our oldest one (20) spent one year in Senegal working for a school for disadvantaged children and is currently studying in the Netherlands. Our second daughter (18) spent one and a half years traveling through Europe and finished her trip, working as a volunteer in Bali. She came back 2 days ago (hurray) and is now ready to start university.
Our son (15) is still living with us and is happy we moved close to the beach a year ago. Avalon Beach is a pretty suburb at the end of the northern peninsula from Sydney and feels like a village.
We have been living in Australia for 13 years, but before that, we lived in Germany, where my children were born.

I am a native French and my husband is Dutch
As long as I can remember, I have always loved languages and I spent most of my life either studying or teaching them. In the last few years however, I felt that I needed to do something more demanding, so i started a degree in nutrition and I am still at it right now.
I spent my whole youth in France (Brittany), but I lived in Spain for a short while after high school and in Belgium as an exchange student (as part of the Erasmus students program, which was at that time in its first year and very basic). Finally, I left my home country as soon as i was finished with university. to live in Bavaria, (Germany). 12 years after, my husband and me started to feel that we needed a change. and that we needed more sunny days so we emigrated to Australia. We loved it so much that we are still here, enjoying the friendly people, the beautiful landscapes and wildlife as well as the wide open spaces.

Pourquoi je suis sur Couchsurfing

I heard about couch-surfing first from a German friend of mine and i found the idea very appealing.
At that time though, I still had my 3 children living at home, an oversea student who was staying for one full year, a Japanese exchange student living near us and who came for dinner every Thursday and a Brazilian overseas student who couldn't stay at her host family anymore and ended up staying with us too. So I didn't feel like hosting more people at that time.
Since then though, 2 of our children have moved out, all the students I was hosting went back to their country and life is a little bit too peaceful since we moved to the Northern Beaches. A couple of months ago, we had 2 Argentinian friends staying at our place and I realised that I had been missing sharing our table with interesting people, so I decided to start couch-surfing.
BTW Please, write g'day in your greeting, so that i know you are not a spam

Centres d'intérêt

• environment
• cooking
• running
• reading
• cycling
• kayaking
• sailing
• languages
• volunteering
• travelling
• people
• nutrition
• bush walking
• learning about other cultures
• cruising
• making new experiences
• origin of languages
• outrigging
• bush camping

Morceaux de musique, films et livres

The choice is so difficult, but here are some of my favourite

Music: classical, 80's,, French songs, Latimo, Russian, Salsa, Zouk, Down Under (Men at Work), Lukas Graham, Marina Kaye, 21 Pilots and lots more

Movies: Gandhi, jeux d'enfants, El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth), the sixth Sense...

Books: Michel Tournier, Carlos Ruiz Zafòn, Friedrich Dürenmatt, Jane Austin, Edward Rutherfurd, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Fortunes Rock by Anita Shreve, The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho and many more. I also like crimes and historical fictions.

Une aventure extraordinaire que j'ai vécue

Some of my most cherished memories include:
doing the ´Tasmanian Overland Track,
sailing to Lord Howe Island,
rock-climbing in Spain...

Enseignez, apprenez, partagez

I can teach you
- how to make perfect, thin and tasty French crepes (sweet and savoury)
- Survival language in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands (one hour :-)
- how to grow ginger and Lemon grass

I would love to share
- recipes
- experiences

I would be extremely interested in learning
- any new language (or words from a new language)
- recipe of your favourite food

Ce que j'aimerais partager avec mes hôtes

good food, laughs, experiences, tipps about sightseeing in Sydney

Pays que j'ai visités

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Cook Islands, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Tonga

Pays dans lesquels j'ai vécu

Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain