I love art and I love Nature. So I define myself as an artist in formation (don't think anyone is ever a complete artist, for art is forever a search, never a given), which means both a way of approaching the world, and an urgent need to melt this very world into words. And I'm a nature-lover (especially of high mountains and trees).
But I'm also a believer in the most humane of human qualities, like generosity, solidarity, compassion, open-heartedness. I have no idea if I have a good amount of any of those, probably not, but these are my personal aims in life and what I admire above anything else in my fellow creatures.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Because I find the concept of getting to know another city, country, another culture through the perspective of its own inahbitants pretty awesome and inspiring. It gives you an everyday life idea of the environment, a different kind of connection -- different from the touristic unattached sightseeing. And mainly I love to get to know people, how they really live, their everyday traits and idyosincrasies.

Interests

I'm a fiction novelist, so of course that my main interests involve words, like writing, reading, chatting, listening to other people's stories, learning different languages. But also arts in general, such as paintings (love galleries and museums), music (especially classical and choir music, and operas), movies.
Visiting historical sites is one of my favourite activities when I arrive at a new place; historical architecture and arts, from medieval times to Victorian Age, is one of my greatest passions.
I love hanging out with friends to pubs and nice restaurants which have a character of their own, which tell something about the history of the place. And trying local food, surely, with its surprising new flavours!

• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• literature
• architecture
• environment
• dining
• pub crawls
• movies
• reading
• music
• teaching
• history
• languages
• sightseeing
• historic sites
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

I love Beethoven, Debussy, Mähler, operas by Wagner and Puccini, and much more. But I also appreciate the imortal rock and pop music from the 70's, 80's and 90's. And folk music in general.
My taste of movies vary from cheesy musicals like The Sound of Music to Truffaut, Pasolini, Bergman, back to movie adaptations of my favourite literary classics, to Meryl Streep romantic dramas like Out of Africa, The Bridges of Madison County.
My favourite books are Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, Middlemarch, by George Eliot, and Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. But I love William Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, all the great Victorian novelists.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I don't know about that. I have made things which I'm happy and sometimes even proud to associate with my name, but I wouldn't call them amazing. The weight of our individual actions is always different for us deep inside than how people judge them from the outside. My having finished my first novel at 12 may have sounded amazing for some friends, but I know it was just childish scribling, my first attempts at literature. If ever any smile or small service I've done to a friend or unknown passerby has brightened up his/her day, though, I might be tempted to call that amazing and let myself be silently proud of it. This is the kind of accomplishment I most admire. "The world needs love... it's the only thing that there's just too little of," says the song. Cheesy, but true nevertheless.

Teach, Learn, Share

I'm an English, History, Portuguese and Literature teacher and I feel qualified to teach one or two things of each subject, but mainly I prefer to share, because I don't believe in the traditionally unilateral learning system.
I can only say what I have learned of most precious so far, which is to live one moment at a time with everything you have, but exactly because my philosophy of life presupposes the ephemerality of all things, I wouldn't trust my own constancy to call it a life lesson. I am, however, always open to learn and perhaps even incorporate other people's truths.

Countries I’ve Visited

England, Germany, Scotland

Countries I’ve Lived In

Brazil, England