I am violin teacher in Detroit, MI. I live with my husband in a house he rehabilitated from a shell over the past 8 years.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

This Ireland trip has special meaning. My sister and I (28 and 31 years old) are traveling to Ireland to see some of the places where our ancestors were born in County Kerry and County Clare. We are related to the O'Connell (not the famous ones) and Fitzgibons. They all moved to Detroit in the 1890s as teenagers. My sister and I will bring our mother's ashes, who passed last year. She visited Ireland with her sister in 1998. They met our oldest living relative at the time, Brigid O'Connell.

We want to use couchsurfing to get to know Ireland better than we would staying at a hotel. Also, as a violin teacher and an afterschool childcare worker, we also need to be thrifty!

Interests

I like to go to (ashtanga) yoga once or twice a week. My husband and I met booking shows at a radical art space nearby. We have two dogs who are sisters named Roofus and Clover that I like to take out into the fields around our house and watch them run. I love teaching violin, gardening and swimming in the Detroit River. We just got a boat and I like to drive slowly around the islands in the river, where my grandfather and great grandfather rowed crew.

• dogs
• arts
• yoga
• running
• gardening
• boating
• traveling
• violin
• rock climbing
• swimming
• teaching

Music, Movies, and Books

My favorite book is Woman on the Edge of Time, written by a female Detroit sci fi author named Marge Peircy. Daughter of the Forest--an Irish author wrote it! Kindred (Octavia Butler). All About Love by bell hooks. Zami by Audre Lorde. Gathering Blue & The Giver are a couple Young Adult books I like too.

Shows I like to watch are Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, The Wire and Battlestar Galactica.

My favorite movies are the ones I see at the art museum's film theater about artists or authors and their lovers that are dramatic and set in pretty fields with rivers and cobblestone villages.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

"Drops" on Aerial Silks and climbing the silks upside down

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you how to relieve pressure/pain/congestion from a headache or cold by using a series of pressure points on your face.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States