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Overview
About Me
I'm a mad scientist.
More in Facebook / Twitter / Instagram: @helderdarocha
Why I’m on Couchsurfing
HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING
I host, most of the time. When I am traveling sometimes I surf, but sometimes I also prefer to stay at hostels to meet travellers, or to camp. I also like to meet people in town for day trips, museums, parks, picnics, language exchange, anything :)
COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE
I've hosted:
- Nicolas, from Canada
- Hugh, from Canada
- Mariana, from Mexico
- Deza, from Minas, Brazil and Dave, from the USA
- Sascha and Amelie, from Germany
- Irina, from Earth (twice!)
- Jerome, from France
- Catherine, from France
- Ralph, from Germany
- Cristina, from Spain
- Colin, from the U.S.
- Anthony, from all over the Earth
- Lisanne from Germany
- Egor from Russia
- Camille, from France
- Suzelle, from France
- Tim, from the UK
- Alçelia, from France
- Raluca, from Transylvania
- Benoit, from France
- Lev, from Russia and Sweden
- Rostislav, from Russia
- Taras, from Russia
- Maria, from Argentina
- Lilliane, from the Phillipines
- Pedro, from Brazil (Porto Alegre)
I was hosted by:
- Olga, in Moscow
- Andressa, in Berlin
- Christine, in Berlin
- Evgeny, in Prague
- Eleonora, in Vienna
- Onu, in Cluj (Romania)
- Mircea, in Bucharest
- Oguzhan, in Istanbul
- Marina, in Kazan
- Taras, in St. Petersburg
- Rostislav, in St. Petersburg
- Dasha, in Moscow
- Elsa, in San Francisco
- Gislaine, in New York
- Irina, in Chicago
Interests
Theatre, performing arts, books, writing, languages, music, painting, sculpture, architecture, astronomy, history, museums, history, science, travels, languages, people, photography, poetry, nature, movies, hiking, swimming, sailing, vegetarian cooking, camping, and so on, and so on...
- birds
- arts
- writing
- books
- poetry
- singing
- performing arts
- architecture
- photography
- dancing
- cooking
- vegetarian
- flying
- movies
- traveling
- socializing
- blogging
- painting
- music
- piano
- hiking
- camping
- sailing
- swimming
- astronomy
- history
- languages
- science
- language exchange
- beaches
- parks
Music, Movies, and Books
Books? Too many. I love stories. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Herodotus's Histories, Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, Jorge Luis Borges's Ficciones, Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years, Casanova's Story of My Life, Dante's Comedy, Dangerous Liaisons, Philip K. Dick's stories, Shakespeare's plays, Oscar Wilde's Ernest and Dorian Gray, Pushkin's Onegin, Chekhov's Cherry Orchard. Kafka's Castle (Oh, the never-ending Castle!) I also like non-fiction masterpieces like Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World, Dawkin's The Selfish Gene, Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, Godel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter and The Selfish Gene, by Dawkins, as well as witty thinkers like Nietzsche, Voltaire and Bertrand Russell. I'm obsessed with nature, the world, the universe. I love physics & philosophy, specially ethics and astronomy.
Music... too big a list. I love many different styles, from Brahms to Muse, Perlman to Gershwin, Jazz to Opera, Tom Waits to Piazzolla, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yann Tiersen, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Villa-Lobos, Guerra-Peixe, Ernesto Nazareth,... & samba, and tango, and so on, and so on.
Movies... same thing. too long a list, evergrowing. I like stories that take my mind beyond the movie theatre. (The best ones can make my return to reality difficult - sometimes it may take a couple of days, but that also happens with good long books, great concerts and plays) I also like a lot of stuff nobody likes.
One Amazing Thing I’ve Done
I swam across the Danube River in Vienna with my host to enter a club on her birthday.
I was interviewed by a local newspaper from Ulyanovsk, Russia, by a reporter who knew some English, while I knew some Russian. The result was hilarious.
While I was spending a few days in Prague, I met some people in a party and was invited to participate in an audition, which I passed and was cast as an actor in a short movie. Filming took an entire day. My character drove a car, rowed a boat, drank a cocktail in a bar, got lost in the streets of Prague.
Teach, Learn, Share
I can, of course, teach all I know about all I know. :) I travel to meet people, not places, to share. It's that which gives meaning to life, isn't it?I can teach music. We can play together if you play an instrument or sing. I can teach you how to find yourself in the sky, the constellations, how to find the planets, the many stories the stars can tell.[I want to learn how to play the bayan. I know how to play the piano accordion. But I would love to play a chromatic button accordion.]I love languages. I always want to learn how to speak a new one (even though I can barely speak the few I think I know - I mix them all up). I can teach iPhone programming, Web programming with HTML5, CSS, SVG (I currently work with that). I'm also enjoy research in contemporary dance and collaborative theatre (which involves doing it, moving around, not just talking about it). Eventually I also make crazy experiments in the kitchen (no casualties so far). If you know any new tricks, I probably will want to learn them. I can cook felafels and varenikes.I love people who correct my terrible French, Italian, German, Spanish. They are all in pretty bad shape since I haven't practiced, but I usually understand a lot better than I can speak, so if you speak no English, no Portuguese, and need help to say something in Portuguese or English, there is a chance I might be able to help. If you came to Brazil to learn Portuguese, beware my library (most books are in English) and tell me you want to avoid speaking English, and we'll do our best. But I can also introduce you to my friends who barely speak any English. You will learn a lot of Portuguese trying to communicate with them.
Countries I’ve Visited
Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Guyana, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela
Countries I’ve Lived In
Brazil, Canada