CURRENT MISSION

To explore new places, to build bridges, and to transcend borders.

ABOUT ME

We love exploring new places and trying new foods.

We love meeting new people, especially fellow travellers. It is the people that you meet that leave the longest lasting impressions of a place.

PHILOSOPHY

Simplicity.

We believe in peace and non-violence and aspire to be the change that we want to see in the world.

We believe that travel can be a wonderful thing that greatly benefits both the traveller and the destination.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We offer our couch and, if available, ourselves as tour guides. We enjoy getting to know people through our Couchsufing experiences and sharing stories of past travels.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We have had several experiences with home-stays and Couch Surfing. We have met a number of Couch Surfers in our travels. It is a fantastic way to experience a destination.

We look forward to gaining experience and meeting interesting new people.

Interests

We enjoy exploring new places and seeing the parts of town that are not meant to be seen by tourists. We enjoy wanders through the woods or across town. We love to indulge in street food and are always ready to try something new.

We are always up for a lively debate on politics, religion, ethics, or anything else. Derrick enjoys assuming the role of devil's advocate and seeing how far he can go.

• ethics
• dining
• cooking
• coach
• politics
• traveling
• surfing
• religion
• tourism

Music, Movies, and Books

Derrick:
Books: I read mostly non-fiction books but also enjoy the classics.... and Harry Potter. I am an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes and enjoy reading historical works of fact or fiction.

Music: I enjoy classical music, oldies rock, a bit of country, and of course: Jimmy Buffett.

Movies: I enjoy any movie that presents a unique idea or concept. I am not so interested in the special effects as much as I am the overall theme.

Natasha:
Favourite Books: al-Qur'an; Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, Lady Windermere's Fan, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Star-Child, The Selfish Giant and most of his poems; Roald Dahl - George's Marvellous Medicine, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The B.F.G., Danny, the Champion of the World, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Henry Sugar, Kiss Kiss, Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen, James and the Giant Peach; Maurice Sendak - Where the Wild Things Are, Outside Over There, The Sign On Rosie's Door; Woody Allen - Getting Even, Mere Anarchy; Jack Kerouac - On The Road, Dharma Bums, The Town and the City, Visions of Cody, Poems - Mexico City Blues, San Francisco Blues, Old Angel Midnight; Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird; Toni Morrison - Sula, Beloved, The Bluest Eye; Douglas Adams - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Life, the Universe and Everything; Alice Walker - The Color Purple; Zora Neale Husrton - Their Eyes Were Watching God; J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye; Hanif Kureishi - The Black Album, Something to Tell You, The Buddha of Suburbia; Betty Smith - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; Pramoedya Ananta Toer - The Buru Quartet, Perburuan (The Fugitive), Bukan Pasar Malam (Not A Night Market); Pablo Neruda's Poetry; W.H. Auden; Allen Ginsberg; Ezra Pound; Wendy Cope; T.S. Eliot; Walt Whitman; W.B. Yates, Dylan Thomas; Julio Cortazar - Diary of Andres Fava, Rayuela (Hopscotch); Simone de Beauvoir - She Came to Stay, The Mandarins, The Second Sex, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter; Jean-Paul Sartre - Nausea, No Exit, Critique of Dialectical Reason; Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting; Karen Armstrong - Muhammad: Prophet for Our Time, Islam: A Short History, The Case For God; Ingrid Mattson: The Story of The Qur'an; Jane Austen - Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Persuasion; Charles Dickens - The Adventures of Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol; Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre; G. Willow Wilson - Mystic Series, The Butterfly Mosque, Cairo, Aces, Vixen: Return of The Lion; Bill Willingham - Fables (Series); Mike Carey - Lucifer Series; Glen David Gold - Carter Beats the Devil; Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union; Dave Eggers - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know Our Velocity, Zeitoun, How We Are Hungry; Salman Rushdie - The Satanic Verses, The Moor's Last Sigh, Midnight's Children, Step Across This Line; Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy; Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things; Rudyard Kipling - Kim, Just So Stories; Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance; Neil Gaiman - The Sandman Series, Coraline, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, Violent Cases, The Graveyard Book, Blueberry Girl, Smoke & Mirrors; J.K. Rowling - The Harry Potter Series, Alan Moore: The Ballad of Halo Jones (series), V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Violator; Frank Miller - 300, Ronin, Sin City; Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Of Love and Other Demons; Soren Kierkegaard - The Seducer's Diary, Either/Or; Louisa May Alcott - Little Women, Jo's Boys, Little Men; L.M. Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Island, Anne's House of Dream, Rilla of Ingleside, Emily Climbs, Emily of New Moon, Emily's Quest, The Chronicles of Avonlea; J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit; Charles Bukowski - Women, Factotum, Ham on Rye; John Irving - The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules; Tom Wolfe - The Bonfire of the Vanities; The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine- Flake Streamline Baby, I Am Charlotte Simmons; Dorothy Parker's Short Stories - The Standard of Living, The Waltz, Arrangement in Black and White, etc; Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient; Regency Romance Novels (Yeap.)

(You cannot ever ask a former film student this question!) Movies: Woody Allen - Play It Again, Sam, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Bullets Over Broadway, Hollywood Ending, Picking Up The Pieces; Quentin Tarantino - Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Vo. 1, Pulp Fiction, Death Proof; Robert Rodriguez - Machete, Desperado; The Sunshine Boys (1975 & 1995), Doctor Zhivago, The Goodbye Girl (1977), Pan's Labyrinth, Funny Girl, Gigi, Grumpy Old Men, Grumpier Old Men, The World According to Garp, The Fisher King, Moscow on the Hudson, The Birdcage; Martin Scorsese - Casino, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, New York, New York, The King of Comedy, Hugo, Kundun; The English Patient; Yentl, The Way We Were; Roberto Benigni - La vita e bella, La Tigre e la Neve; Pedro Almodovar - Talk To Her, Bad Education, Volver; The Motorcycle Diaries, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Paris je t'aime, Central Station, No Country For Old Men, Red, Apocalypse Now, Midnight Cowboy, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Tootsie, Rain Man, Wag the Dog, Hook, City Slickers 1 & 2, Death of a Salesman, A Clockwork Orange, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Shakespeare Wallah, Glengarry Glen Ross, Nora Ephron's films; City of God, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Coen Brothers' films, Judd Apatow's films, The Philadelphia Story, To Sir, With Love, X, American History X, American Graffiti, Giant, The Color Purple, Schindler's List, Casablanca, Ingmar Bergman's films; Wong Kar Wai - Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, 2046; Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Eat A Bowl of Tea, Frankie & Johnny, Serpico, The Godfather Part 2, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Sound of Music, The Deer Hunter, Gandhi, Driving Miss Daisy, Batteries Not Included, Pixar - Toy Story 1-3, Monsters Inc, UP, Ratatouille, Wall-e, Aristocats, Philadelphia, Where the Wild Things Are…. and this is making my nose bleed…

Favourite Music: John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Dave Brubeck. Django Reinhardt, Nina Simone, Puccini, Verdi. Big Mama Thornton, Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, SRV, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Carole King, Jimi Hendrix, Don Mclean, Bob Dylan, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Nick Cave, Elliott Smith, Tom Waits, OKGO, Vampire Weekend, The Killers, Coldplay, Avett Brothers, KOL, Pearl Jam, Belle and Sebastian, The Mountain Goats, Mountain Man, Ingrid Michaelson, Lisa Hannigan, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Jurassic 5, Fiona Apple, Ani Difranco, Andrew Bird, way too many, man...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Derrick has been all over Mexico and the United States. On one journey, he traveled to Tampa, Florida from Belize City, Belize- entirely by coach.

Natasha has lived in Perth, Western Australia where she studied Film and Advertising at Curtin University. She has also traveled around the UK, and visited France, Switzerland, New Zealand, Turkey, the UAE, Indonesia, Singapore as well as India.

We are intrepid travellers- using caution, but still wandering into the corners of places that tourists dare not venture.

Teach, Learn, Share

We can and love to cook! We have travelled extensively and can share information as well as advice about travel around the US, Malaysia, Western Australia, Victoria, Europe, and Central America.

We are also slightly nerdy and are interested in a wide variety of subjects.

Countries I’ve Visited

Andorra, Australia, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Cayman Islands, France, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Saint Lucia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State, Viet Nam, Virgin Islands, U.S.

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

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