CURRENT MISSION

Travelling as far and as widely as possible before I get burdened with too many commitments.

ABOUT ME

I'm a 23 year-old Brit about to move to London to start a course as a law student. I've previously lived in Paris, where I worked as an English teacher and waiter, and in the US, where I spent a year studying the history of the civil rights movement. I consider myself a laid-back person and a good guest, and enjoy music from all over the world, cycling, canals, cooking and travel.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

No hosting so far, although I'm hoping to change that in due course. I've stayed and had excellent experiences with a couple of hosts in Belgium and Luxembourg.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

As above, unless you count friends' couches as experience. Lots of that.

Interests

All the customary ones: music, hot beverages, travel - particularly cycling trips - and good company.

Some more eclectic stuff: playing obscure percussion instruments, especially the marimba and the steel drums. Modernist architecture and New Urbanism. The history of social movements, in particular the civil rights movement

• architecture
• dancing
• civil rights
• seafood
• cooking
• drinking
• traveling
• music
• folk music
• drums
• cycling
• camping
• teaching
• history
• law
• religion
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: I love Nick Hornby novels, especially High Fidelity, Juliet, Naked, and a Long Way Down. Most of all, from a fellow Arsenal fanboy, his football autobiography, Fever Pitch. Evelyn Waugh's Scoop and A Handful of Dust for the blackest humour. For a few years as an undergraduate I almost exclusively read history books: Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns has to be my favourite.

Movies: Anything by the Coen brothers, with A Serious Man and Fargo being my particular jam. L.A. Confidential for the performances and the twist. The Lives of Others. Watching John Huston's version of The Dead, a short story by James Joyce, was one of the only times a film has made me cry, but I've not been able to rewatch it since.

TV: The Wire, Peep Show, Brasseye, and the Wire again.

Music: Too many to mention, so I'll stick to things I'm listening to at the moment. That means Van Morrison's Moondance, Alt-J, Daft Punk, Lauryn Hill, Toots and the Maytals, San Fermin, and Hospice by the Antlers. Melodic hip-hop, especially Jurassic 5, and at the moment Nujabes. Favourite album: Otis Blue, by Otis Redding. Favourite artist: Kanye West. Favourite arsehole: also Kanye West.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

That one time I accidentally spent the weekend with a cult in Vermont.

It happened like this: a friend and I were on an Autumn camping trip in the Green Mountains, looking for a place to stay. The most popular tip on hikers' blogs was a no-frills hostel in the small town of Rutland. It offered home-cooked meals and a discount for hikers. Perfect.

What nobody had made clear was the hostel's dual identity as accommodation and back-to-the-earth religious commune. The group who owned and ran it called themselves the Twelve Tribes of Israel and dressed in traditional - Amish, almost - style. The man boasted large, shaggy beards. The women had their hair tied back below a cloth cap. Almost everyone introduced themselves with a biblical name - Zephaniah, perhaps, or Rachael. They certainly didn't lack for friendliness. On our second night we were invited to join the group for their weekly Sabbath celebration - on a Friday, of course, so we knew the Israel references weren't just lip service.

That night was one of the most surreal and memorable of my life. In a large, wooden-beamed barn with lofted ceilings we were presented with an entirely homegrown and homecooked meal. The mackerel was the most flavoursome and tender seafood I've ever had the pleasure of eating. The conversation touched on religion, but never in an insistent or dogmatic way. And after the last plate was cleaned we were invited to join the group for an evening of circle dancing, accompanied by Yiddish folk music.

I subsequently Googled the Twelve Tribes, and discovered their reputation for being insular, even sinister. But from my experience I wouldn't have a bad word to say about them.

What I Can Share with Hosts

A drink, a recipe, or just a friendly conversation.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Laos, Luxembourg, Morocco, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, United Kingdom, United States