Daniel in 2018:

I grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA with a great family and two dogs. In middle school my family lived in Hanover, Germany for 5 months and I still speak a little German! After high school I spent year saving up money to travel to Costa Rica, where I worked on a farm and learned Spanish. Then I returned to the US and studied Public Policy at Duke University. At the end of college I helped to build a local-farm-to-freezer startup. That was cool, but I realized my favorite thing to do was talk to and learn about interesting people, so for the last year (first in DC and now NYC), I've been trying out being an audio producer and journalist. I've got a wonderful girlfriend named Marit who sings and acts and crochets. I love her a lot.

It's been a while (2012) since I used this! But a lot of my old bio (below) still rings true. It's a little embarrassing reading this six years later but, oh well, you got to laugh at yourself sometimes, right? Here it is with a little [commentary] from 2018 Daniel.

Daniel in 2012 (my old profile):

Current Mission: Try as many foods as possible. Spread the love of gardening. Help folks. [I still aspire to all these things except garden: I do that more quietly now]

About Me: I'm silly and terrible at telling jokes :P [this is still very true]. Im told i plunge into deep topics--economics, philosophy, policy, sociology. I find them the most exhilarating anyway.

I play guitar and love to jam with folks, occasionally performing in the street simply cuz it's a blast [Present day me: I haven't done this in years]. Crockpots [and now Instant Pots] are my best friends. I'm learning to dance salsa [now other things]. I juggle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdzmM_6xyA0. I cook a lot and I eat a lot. I also garden [Unfortunately I can't do much of this in NYC, but I'm planning a window herb garden for the spring]

Philosophy: Live now. Love life. Be passionate. Don't hold back [wow, that's a trip to read. Man I was an eager beaver]. Also, I believe each of us is profoundly interesting in some way. Every person is weird, and some show it more than others. Each of us has something to teach, and to offer, and to learn. And we each have a responsibility to our communities to improve ourselves and improve life around us [I still believe all this].

Por qué estoy en Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING [why are these in all caps?]: I travel, and one day--one day!--I hope to possess a couch [I now own a couch]

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE: None. [Not true anymore. I went a salsa dancing convention in Orlando in 2012.]

Intereses

discussing politics, gardening, cooking, juggling, guitar, learning about accents and dialects, ping pong, racquetball, talking to strangers, eating to new foods, reading, running, learning

• animals
• culture
• dancing
• cooking
• running
• gardening
• politics
• reading
• traveling
• juggling
• guitar
• racquetball
• table tennis
• economics
• sociology

Música, películas y libros

Books: Water for Elephants, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, A Dirty Job, Lamb, The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics, How to Grow More Vegetables: Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine, The End of Growth, The Great Gatsby, The Goophered Grape Vine, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes inside Biosphere 2, Lies My Teacher Told Me, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Foods, Farms and People Mattered, Find Peace with Tai Chi: Teach Yourself, The Rum Diary, Roberts Rules of Order, Permaculture (I & II), "Republic, Lost"

Movies: 12 Angry Men, Bridge over the River Kwai, The Great Escape, Hotel Rwanda, 12 Days in May, Good Will Hunting, Charlie Wilson's War, The Terminal, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Waking Life, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Shanghai Noon, Rush Hour, Space Jam

Music: Blackalicious, George Gershwin, Claude Debussy, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Vampire Weekend, Young the Giant, Mos Def, Blue Scholars, Flobots, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Astronautalis, Incubus, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, Mofro, Jason Mraz, T-Bone Walker, Fred Mississippi McDowell, Chris Thomas King, Allison Krauss & Union Station, Superchunk, Lost in the Trees, Little Comets, The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, The Easy Club, Cuco Valoy, Blind Melon, Zaz, The Avett Brothers, The Spring Standards, Fun., The New Limb, Alexi Murdoch, Eric Hutchinson, The Kooks, The Mountain Goats, Kings of Convenience, Jack Johnson, Maroon 5, Jose Gonzalez, The Tallest Man on Earth, Esperanza Spalding, William Fitzsimmons, Zero 7,

Algo increíble que he hecho

Two volcanos rise 1750 meters from enormous Lake Nicaragua, forming Isla de Ometepe. It was beautiful and above the tree line, you are beyond the sounds of the town, the lake, animals and everything. When the wind stops, the silence is beautiful.

Qué puedo ofrecer a los anfitriones

I'm a pretty good cook (thai, vietnamese, south indian, tex-mex, greek) and happy to contribute time and money to meals.

I can also interview you or someone you want to talk to with my audio equipment.

Países que he visitado

Nicaragua

Países en los que he vivido

Costa Rica, Germany