I'm an Austrian-German Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago.

Sidejobs include curating online journalism at Piqd (piqd.de) and freelance translation. I've also been a summer camp instructor at Gakko (gakkoproject.com).

I'm a quiet person, non-smoking, but don't mind if others do.

https://davidkretz.wordpress.com/

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I travel quite a lot. Sometimes for academic purposes, sometimes just to discover the world, and it's always nicer to stay with locals :)

Interests

• arts
• literature
• politics
• guitar
• table tennis
• history
• philosophy
• film
• scouting
• translation

Music, Movies, and Books

Music — Dylan, Beatles, Stones, Joni Mitchel, Leonard Cohen. Classic rock, indie rock, singer/songwriter. Mostly anything with guitars and lyrics :) Classical music, too. I keep learning about jazz...

Movies — Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Werner Herzog, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino are among my favourites. Also big fan of 1920s German cinema (Lubitsch, Lang, Murnau). Anyone who tells a good story.

Books — Mostly I read philosophy, but I'm an intellectual omnivore. I used to read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi (Tolkien, GRR Martin, Frank Herbert...) and love Borges' short stories, Murakami novels, Stefan Zweig, and Plato's dialogues. I also like to read poetry and sometimes graphic novels. Currently, I'm reading Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Hm... I've traveled the complete Berlin S-Bahn train network twice — all stations and all line segments, with some friends. It was partly an art project, partly an attempt to set a world record. The first time took us about 17h, the second time around 15h.

Last summer, I spent three weeks with a group of anthropologists/ethnomusicologists on Lanyu, a small island half-way between Taiwan and the Philippines. Happy to share that story, too.

Teach, Learn, Share

I play some guitar and am always happy to share, learn, and jam a bit :) I can teach some French / German / English. I'm an o.k. cook, always happy to lend a hand and share a recipe, and a pretty decent table tennis player. I enjoy a game of chess. I can teach you how to waltz (kind of goes with being Austrian...).

I've also taught philosophy and poetry translation to high schoolers in Romania and Indonesia and I am always happy to share thoughts on that.

What I Can Share with Hosts

If you wanna talk philosophy, I'm your man. If you tell me a bit about yourself, chances are I'll be able to recommend you a good book.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Cambodia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Laos, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, France, Germany, United States