CURRENT MISSION

I'm doing my best to see new things, meet new people, try to have a positive impact, if any, and enjoy myself along the way.

ABOUT ME

Teaching English abroad was the vehicle that allowed me to travel while doing work I love for a few years, taking me to South Korea, and the classrooms of small town Hungary. After a few years living overseas I moved to Washington, DC with my husband where I teach English to college students as a professor. Though we're on the move again for a nomadic year in Northern Wisconsin, with the plan of landing in Colorado. I don't think I'll ever get the travel bug out of my system, nor do I want to.

PHILOSOPHY

I don't think traveling has anything to do with delaying the real world, but is about engaging with the world's many faces and places in a real way. I'm doing my best to see new things, meet new people, try to have a positive impact, if any, and enjoy myself along the way. I often find that people are at the core of what makes traveling memorable and meaningful.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Whether you're interested in getting a cup of coffee, walking around town, or staying the night, we're happy to host travelers and do plenty of surfing ourselves too.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

After hearing nothing but rave reviews from others, I thought it was high time I got involved. I've had nothing but positive experiences.

Interests

Reading, writing, hiking, putzing around outside, attempting to learn Hungarian (truth be told this is currently something I aspire to call a hobby. Send me ambitious vibes), teaching, loitering in cafes and pubs, meeting new people, trying to figure out how to use my DSLR but avoiding the handbook at all costs, spending quality time with my cats, etc.

• cats
• writing
• festivals
• dining
• chocolate
• coffee
• walking
• pub crawls
• shopping
• reading
• traveling
• hiking
• surfing
• teaching

Music, Movies, and Books

I love live music of all kinds, preferably at small and local venues. I also love reading, even more since college ended and books stopped being an assignment. I'm happily stuck in a contemporary lit. rut right now, but hope to dapple more in other periods over the next year. I also have a shameless weakness every now and then for romance novels whose entire plot and ending I know before I open the cover.

There's too many to count, but some of my favorite books are:
Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible consistently sticks in my mind.
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Sophie's Choice
Harry Potter
The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Between the four hour parade of floats made of rice paper creations, the thousands of lanterns, the free food, the traditional dancers, and outpouring of generosity and welcome, the Lotus Lantern Festival celebrating Buddha's birthday in Seoul is among the most memorable things I've experienced. Hiking in Norway also blew me away. And among the other quirky things Amsterdam delivered, meeting River Dancers getting hot chocolate in a coffee shop when everyone was obviously there for other refreshments was among the most delightfully offbeat encounters I had.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden

Countries I’ve Lived In

Hungary, Norway, South Korea, United States