CURRENT MISSION

I aim to meet and listen to everybody, but be sure to apologise for the imposition.

ABOUT ME

I guess people are complicated and a few words won't cover it, but the first thing that comes to mind here is that I like listening to people. Every day I like it more. I'd say I love new languages, cultures, experiences; I'd say I love every kind of new experience, but I really like hearing and learning about them. Like, if I came to London I'd love to see Buckingham Palace, but I'd really love someone to tell me why there's a flag up even when the Queen's not there, and what that means.

I'm a student at the moment and I like it. I'm doing the right subject with Literature because I'm learning about people, from people, all the time. It's good meeting people in books, it's halfway like talking to them and some of them are great to know, but it's better meeting people for real. They don't let you study this in universities yet and it's lucky there are other people at university or I'd probably go crazy.

Sometimes I teach, and I love that because it's all about listening. Well, with kids sometimes its about shouting, and ordering about, but that part's definitely not so fun. Mostly though, I'm listening, hearing people's ideas, sometimes as they articulate them in English for the first time, and it's an amazing experience.

我为什么加入 Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

It's clear that I just joined this site, and it's been a year since I last had a connection to the community. When I met them, even when I was having a great time meeting people, hanging out with them, even having fun fetching one woman from the station at 5.00am and telling her a little about Barcelona, I never thought about just doing it myself.

A little weird, but I have now, and whenever I can I'll show people 'round, and certainly whenever I can I'll host them. If I'm staying with someone my attitude is that I earn my couch if I can, helping people out with living and looking after their place. If I'm doing that in a new country, in a new culture, or if I'm lucky in a new language, I don't think I could imagine a better holiday. So I'll never take a couch for granted.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I guess one involves my time on a boat in Barcelona when an old friend lost his apartment in an unfortunate situation and needed a place. All I had was the 16m engine-less sailing boat I was staying on with one tiny sleeping cabin, and no real 'couch' to speak of.

We at first tried to sort out a tarpaulin-tent on top of the boat, but even in a Barcelona July that got cold in the night, and blew about in the morning breeze, so we had to cushion the 'couch'/wooden board below deck for a second bed. Still my mate stayed four days there and we had a great time right in the centre of Barcelona.

兴趣

If something doesn't interest me I tend to assume it's because I don't know enough about it, but I suppose we can discover what really interests us by looking at how we spend our time. Thing is, I'm not really consistent with that. I like fencing, but I haven't done it for a few weeks, although I did try out Muay Thai; I like reading, but I've mostly been writing for the past month; I like listening, but in a classroom surrounded by uninterested elementary speakers, you're speaking a lot of the time. But I enjoyed that experience as well. Sometimes I'll play computer games but I'll stop to do anything else... If you'd told me I'd enjoy spending twelve hours putting some sails on a boat, taking them off, putting them on, taking them off and putting them on again, I'd have called you crazy. But I really enjoyed it, so I'm not sure what my interests are. I guess... try me!

• culture
• writing
• books
• literature
• walking
• boating
• reading
• socializing
• sailing
• fencing
• languages
• language exchange

我做过的一件不可思议的事情

Lived on a leaky (rain-leaky) boat for 2 months in Barcelona Marina (Barceloneta). That was an amazing time.

Hitch-hiked to Alicante in 36 hours for Charity.

Found an amazing couchsurfing community in Barcelona by walking into a bar and talking to the right person. Thank you Cai for not punching me when I asked 'Are you English' - There are Welshmen who would.

教，学，和分享

Well, I'm trained to teach English as a foreign language and have some experience of this, so I could help with more than just communication practice. If anyone asks me about some kind of language exchange where I'm living or elsewhere, I could give you a focused lesson for your part of the exchange if you wanted. Or we could just chat. I absolutely love language exchanges of all kinds. I can also tie a knot that tightens as it's pulled, which for someone as impractical as me feels like a skill, but I'm not sure it is. I wouldn't minding learning more knots.

我游览过的国家

Canada, United States

我居住过的国家

Spain, United Kingdom