CURRENT MISSION

Gestate a baby

ABOUT ME

Dan: I'm fairly well traveled. I took a lot of foreign holidays with my parents and continued to travel whenever I had the time and money.
I enjoy music, painting, drawing, cooking, reading, films, the theater, nature and taking pleasure in the small things in life.
I can be quite shy but open up when I get to know people or have a couple of beers in me.
A few years ago I went on holiday to Canada and fell in love with the place. After a student work visa and some couch surfing I now find myself to be a permanent resident living in Montreal and married to my lovely wife Erica.
Originally I'm from Broadstairs in England but I've also called several other places home: Falmouth (Cornwall), Newcastle Emlyn, Tregaron, Lampeter (all Ceredigion), Toronto (Canada) and now lovely NDG in Montreal, where I'm slowly learning to at least swear like a Quebecois if not actually speak some intelligible sentences in French.

Erica: I'm an Anglophone Quebecer from a small French town. When I was very young, I thought Montreal was "Canada", so given that it has always been writ large in my mind, its probably no surprise that I moved here to attend college/university as soon as I was old enough and have lived here ever since.
I love animals and nature and a favorite part of my day is walking to work in the early morning listening to the birds and pausing to see if I can't spot that cardinal who is so proudly singing.
Friends and family are important to me, and I think I'm very lucky to still be hanging out with some people I got to know in kindergarten. (I wasn't the only one enamored with the big city)

PHILOSOPHY

Dan:
Treat others as you would like to be treated. Respect and honesty are very important to me. I think it's important to try to find the good in everything, even when its pretty difficult to see at first.
Respect to the "Jack of all trades" and the "walking encyclopedia" , I love learning new things.

Erica: Aww, Dan stole mine! I was going to say do unto others... Mainly I believe in the equality of all people regardless of race, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation, well you get the idea. I think if you start from that, then good things can flow.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Erica and I couchsurfed around Europe for two months and had an amazing time and met some really kind and generous people.
Since then we have started hosting in Montreal: So far so good.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Dan: I (indirectly) met Erica and emigrated to Canada through couch surfing. I met a guy in a pub, he let me crash on his couch while I was staying in Montreal out of the kindness of his own heart. We stayed good friends and I visited him regularly. After about a year or two I stole his ex (10 years) girlfriend and married her. Thanks Matt Watson, couch host extraordinaire.
Since then Erica and I finally got around to taking our honeymoon. We traveled around Europe for about two months and couchsurfed with all kinds of amazing people along the way. I don't think we had a single bad experience, and we had plenty of good ones. It really restores your faith in humanity to know that there are such kind and generous people out there.

Interests

DAN:
Art: I studied illustration at university although I haven't pursued it any further (yet). I like drawing and painting with all sorts of different mediums but I ended up specializing in realistic natural history illustration. My taste in artists ranges from Robert Bateman to Frank Auerbach and everything in between, I'd say I like Art in general.

Cooking: I really like cooking, I'd train to do it for a job if I wasn't afraid that it would spoil the fun I have just cooking for family and friends.

Nature: I love nature documentaries, especially anything narrated by David Attenborough, Anything not narrated by him just dosn't sound right to my British ear.
I like Robert Bateman's painting and drawing, but sometimes I find he can border on the cheesy.

I like the rain because of the smell and the atmosphere and that somehow it reminds me of home despite the fact that it really dosn't rain THAT much in Britain.
I also like the sea, the wind, the snow, the Welsh hills... all for reasons I feel I can justify. I'm less keen on the sun, probably because I burn easily, but I'm learning to appreciate it.

I used to climb at a climbing gym in Toronto (but only twice on real rock), I was getting to be OK at it but now I'm about as flexible as a girder and I think the harder routes might be well beyond my capabilities.

Erica: I like to learn and lately have been taking some university classes for fun. The past year has been spent fixing up our apartment and I've discovered I enjoy DIY projects. Turning flea market finds into something new for you is very gratifying. I like trying out new recipes, I can't stop buying cookbooks from my store, but I call Dan the actual cook because he's more able to wing it than I can. Though I'm only at an intermediate level I love downhill skiing. I like birdwatching too and I think next summer I will try to join a club here in Montreal and get into it more formally.

• animals
• birds
• arts
• singing
• theater
• documentaries
• illustrations
• diy
• cooking
• recipes
• beer
• walking
• clubbing
• pub crawls
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• painting
• drawing
• music
• surfing
• skiing
• rock climbing
• history
• religion
• working visa
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Dan- Reading: Almost anything by Graham Greene, Annie Proulx. Also (off the top of my head): The Outsider - Albert Camus, White Teeth - Zadie Smith, Life of Pi - Yann Martel, Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks. I also like reading some non fiction.

Films: most stuff by: Jean Pierre Jeunet, Stanley Kubrick, Mike Leigh, Coen brothers. Some all time favourites: "Full Metal Jacket" , "Excalibur" , "Watership Down".

Music: Honestly, anything that I like, I like. I hate trying to pin my tastes down because I find that this area above all others tends to lead people to assume they can tell who you are. I like some opera, classical, hip hop, punk, rock, metal, country, blues... sometimes I find jazz too pretentious and irritating , but I'm willing to be educated to the contrary.
Recently I have been listening to: Martha Wainwright, Chopin, Carl Orff, Luke Kelly, The United Steelworkers of Montreal, Nick Cave, Cannibal Ox, Vampire Weekend.

Erica: I'm not a huge movie buff, but if asked to give a favorite I would have to say Fargo. Guess I'm more of a TV girl, and I've enjoyed watching HBO shows on DVD like The Wire, and Six Feet Under. I also like some sci-fi: Classic Star Trek, The XFiles and Firefly.

I enjoy many types of music, but again if I had to name "a favorite" I'll wave the Canadian flag and say the Tragically Hip, if only because they are so much fun to see live. This past week I've listened to Andrew Bird, Arcade Fire, Neko Case, Fleet Foxes, Elliot Brood, Movits, Great Lake Swimmers....

Bookwise I tend towards nonfiction, I love love love David Sedaris because he makes you laugh out loud. Because I manage a magazine store and can read them for free I do read a lot of mags every week too. (TV and magazines instead of movies and books? Perhaps I just have a short attention span) The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, Harpers and Macleans usually always have something I find interesting to read on my lunch breaks.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Dan: This question is very difficult... so many possibilities. I'm thinking about it.

Erica: Two years ago we went to Tadoussac for whale watching in a zodiac. We were part of the first outing in the very early morning on a foggy day. There was no wind at all, it was perfectly still, so the water was like glass. With no sound except for the hum of the engine and nothing to see but flat grey water below and white mist all around with one tiny bright circle where the sun was above us, it truly felt other worldly. Even if we didn't see any whales I was going to come away happy to have experienced "nothing". We were fortunate though, the fog lifted and we got close to a bunch of different whales, which was awe inspiring. I found it truly moving.

Teach, Learn, Share

Dan:
I'd like to think that I'm quite patient with others, considerably less so with myself. I could teach all sorts of things to the best of my sometimes limited ability.
Teach:
I can teach some drawing and painting techniques.
I've worked in all kinds of jobs and could teach some various skills to a DIY level (although I wouldn't know if my skills complied with local building codes) : bricklaying and pointing, chimney sweeping, drywalling and plastering, all sorts of odd job stuff really.
Share:
I know how to belay (climbing) although I wouldn't trust to my lead belay skills.
I love to cook and could share some recipes and ideas.
Learn:
I would really like to be less of an Englishman and actually master at least one other language, French is now a necessity others would just help me to become more of a man of the world.
Aside from this I'm always interested in learning new skills.

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