Adorer of the arts, avid urban power-walker, speakeasy enthusiast, wanderer-gone-corporate.
Currently based in Washington DC and I’m super excited to finally be in a position to give back to this wonderful community! Though I’ve been inactive around these parts for a few years now, I’m slowly starting to ease myself back onto the road -- so let’s see how it goes!

So far, I have typically been a solo traveler by choice and a fast traveler by necessity, and have enjoyed both thoroughly. I am a somewhat chaotic introvert and feel most myself and able to connect with others when I'm on the move, so let’s just say I have an odd grudge against inertia at this point in my life.

I collect stories (and tiny bowls, occasionally) and I’m a big fan of wild tangents. Since I absolutely suck at small talk, the opportunity to sit down and have long conversations over drinks with fascinating people is one of my favorite things about CS. Scroll down for sample of random things that excite me and see if we might click!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

The sheer amount of kindness and compassion I have found in my travels through the CS community has been mind-boggling. So I suppose I am here to shock myself into some new experiences and somehow live up to the generosity that has brought me this far.

Interests

• arts
• literature
• singing
• design
• interior design
• photography
• documentaries
• cooking
• jazz
• hiking
• windsurfing
• hitchhiking
• gastronomy
• street photography
• city walking
• access to medicines advocacy
• long philosophical rants
• gallery-hopping
• techno & edm
• thirift-flipping
• hyphenated words

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:
I tend to go for odd combinations of trip-hop, jazz, and electronic music: house, psytrance, techno - anything with a solid bass track and rhythm, really. Let me drop a few names here just in case: Massive Attack, Blockhead, Ella Fitzgerald, Fat Freddy's Drop, Kamasi Washington, Ilhan Ersahin Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Haelos, Portishead, Thievery Corporation, Nicolas Jaar... I enjoy drum and bass when I'm washing dishes, and fall back in love with reggae, hip-hop, R&B, blues, hard rock, and classical music on occasion.

Books:
Some of my go-tos, among many...
Slaughterhouse Five; Mother Night (Vonnegut)
The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov)
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (Murakami)
The Joke (Kundera)

Currently reading: The Wild Palms (Faulkner)

FIlms:
The Dreamers, Dancer in the Dark, The Salt of the Earth, Zimna Wojna, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Big Short, Kill Your Darlings, Enter the Void, La Grande Belezza, Dallas Buyers Club. .. Always up for a good documentary!

Other Shows: Homeland, Shameless, Billions, Babylon Berlin, The Queen's Gambit, Rick and Morty, Archer

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

--- Climbed up to the top of an abandoned WWII monument in Croatia (Petrova Gora, Karlovac) and watched some flat-bottomed cumulus clouds float by.

--- Spent a chill evening in the Sahara Desert with five kittens and a bottle of wine.

--- Met a sloth. Turns out they’re vicious. But also very fluffy.

Teach, Learn, Share

Applied crash course into Turkish culture, food, and language! Currently obsessed with scotch, street photography, and game theory – you are more than welcome to follow me down the rabbit hole. I'm also all up for random painting/sketching/jam sessions (although you might have to pry them out of me) + adore cooking.

I WILL inevitably burst into an overly enthusiastic lecture about drug policy or access to medicines. On the off-chance that you're interested in chatting about intellectual property law or drug pricing, I'm your gal. Shutting me up with food / fluffy beings / random home improvement projects is entirely possible (and sometimes recommended). You have been forewarned.

I'd really love to learn some of your language (or practice a mutual one), and I'm looking to start learning some krav maga and yoga, so if you have any experience to share, I'd be grateful!

What I Can Share with Hosts

I'd be happy to help with any sort of housework or chores - cleaning, laundry, organizing, furniture repairs, sewing and tailoring, etc. I have been told that I could give any mechanical dishwasher a run for its money, so yes, I suppose that's my specialty. I'm also pretty good with pets, and I'm a decent cook when I'm in my element. If you're kind enough to open your house up to me, I'll try my best to help out in whatever way I can.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Turkey, United States