CURRENT MISSION

The purpose of saving money is to spend it later on traveling. Life is supposed to be lived meeting great people, eating delicious foods, and seeing super awesome places.

ABOUT ME

IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO SURF... (Sorry for the caps!) Please take a moment to read the couch info on the left-hand side of this page! It lists my availability and other important info. Thanks!

I was born and raised in Orange County, California in a wonderful, bilingual household. I recently moved to Durham, North Carolina to study Duke after studying a few years at Georgetown in Washington, DC.

I started traveling at the age of 5 when my family would take advantage of the summer to visit my father's family in Chile (he's a political refugee who escaped the Pinochet dictatorship). Traveling has been a normal part of my life ever since.

I called Southern California home for 26 years before moving to DC to pursue a PhD in Economics at Georgetown University. I then moved to Durham, NC in 2014 to work my advisor at Duke University. Before that, I was studying for my M.S. in Applied Stats. I've also worked as an English teacher in South Korea.

I've been fortunate enough to have many great experiences in my life and am looking forward to having more! And since many have been thanks to CS, I'm glad I finally get to give back by hosting this summer!

PHILOSOPHY

People are awesome. Trust first and expect good.

There's never a reason to be mean.

Also, as you've noticed from my many, many photos, I believe in the the power of images; a photo can say more about a person than a paragraph.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I have mostly surfed but was lucky enough to finally host during the summer of 2013 while living in DC. Had some pretty cool surfers!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Many! I had an amazing time traveling Southeast Asia, South America, and Europe using CS. It adds such a different dynamic to traveling.

Staying in hostels often has the same feel, no matter where you are: people wanted to get drunk, hook-up, and see the same thing as every other traveler in the hostel. But doing CS opens up entirely new places and people to your trip! You escape the same tourist traps and traveler-saturated areas most travelers get funneled to.

I can't imagine traveling without CS. CSing is like that local band you feel so lucky to have found after listening to the same pop radio station (Hostels, in this case) for hours or days on end. It's refreshing and special.

Some random examples of memories I happen to treasure (and some seem very mundane):
- Singing "Stand by Me" at a music venue in Ho Chi Minh City.
- Getting lost in Lima, Peru and then befriending a family on the street who I still keep in contact with.
- Going to a gay club in Phnom Penh called "The Glory Hole" (hilarious!) with my host and his boyfriend and watching the best cross dressing belly dancers I've ever seen.
- Showing the movie "Super Troopers" to my Romanian hosts in Sucre, Bolivia.
- Riding a bus in Manchester, I randomly passed a park where I saw people throwing frisbees. I hit the stop button, jumped off, and went over to ask if I could throw with them. Minutes later, I was playing pick-up Goaltimate with borrowed-on-the-spot clothes and shoes. Just amazing.
- Randomly running into one of my favorite bands, Set Your Goals, on the London Tube. They put me on their guest list and I saw them that same night for free at a local pub. So cool!
- Got invited to play in a Catalan Ultimate Frisbee tournament for a random French team that was low on players. Worldwide Ultimate Community for the win.

Interests

Ultimate Frisbee, Programming.

• singing
• running
• clubbing
• pub crawls
• clothing
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• economics
• teaching
• mathematics
• statistics

Music, Movies, and Books

Favorite Music:

My favorite band has to be The Menzingers.

Besides them, I'm a fan Inspection 12, Say Anything, Over It, Punchline, Whippersnapper, Classic Rock, Cake, Circa Survive, Craig's Brother, Flogging Molly, Saves the Day, Hey Mike!, Hey Stroker, Less Than Jake, Rage Against the Machine, Frou Frou, Postal Service, Strung Out, Yellow Card, Weezer, Silvio Rodriguez, Unsung Zeros, Gametime, New Found Glory, Ryan's Hope, Set Your Goals, LCD Soundsystem, Face to Face, The Swellers, Four Year Strong, Much the Same, Bayside, The Dresden Dolls, Cartel, None More Black, Inti-Illimani, Quilapayun, Illapu, Ryan Heenan, Los Prisioneros, The Beatles, Flobots

Favorite TV Shows:
The Simpsons, The News Hour, Frontline, NOW, Family Guy, South Park, Dexter, Scrubs, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report

Favorite Movies:
The Prestige, Band of Brothers (Not a movie, but might as well be), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dr. Zhivago, Stranger Than Fiction, City of God, Star Trek, Spider Man, The Dark Knight, The Incredibles, Beerfest...

...you know, there's just too many damned good movies out there and I've seen too many of 'em.

Favorite Books:
Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Harry Potter Series, Dracula, Adventures of Sookie Stackhouse Series... I'm not good at remember book titles.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

AmeriCorps NCCC is pretty much the most unique thing I've done. It is my inspiration to see more of the world and my reason that I believe in the power of people. Ask me about it and I won't shut up.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you some math or how to throw a flick (with a frisbee). If you have a guitar, I can teach you a few songs and/or tab out any song that you'd like to know!

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, France, India, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Peru, Philippines, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Chile, South Korea, United States

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