We are a family with open arms and open doors. We love to invite the world in, meet new people and share experiences. We also like to huddle inside and cocoon with art, literature and music.
We welcome guests of any nationality, country, culture or religion. Meeting new people, open-minded travellers, families and adventurers is a treat for our minds and souls.

A bit of personal history:
Christophe has lived abroad for longer stretches of time (with AFS and as a university student) in the USA, Ecuador and South-Africa. He is a medical doctor who has specialised in medical data management and spends most of his day working on large chuncks of medical data. He's also an expert for the national government department of health.
He gets to his job at AZ Nikolaas hospital by velomobile, a carbon-kevlar covered recumbent trike. He loves recumbent cycling and participates in races and group events.

Kirstin grew up in a family where anyone was welcome to stay for supper and sleep over, wherever they were from - the next town or the next continent.
She is a writer and literary critic, and works as an editor-journalist for the newspaper of the Flemisch Family Union, Gezinsbond. In a former life she was a teacher of Dutch and English. She loves writing, going for walks, working in the garden and reading reading reading.
She can boast four published adolescent novels and an educational short story so far. Since mid-2016 she has been working in close collaboration with artist and illustrator Jurgen Walschot. Together, they create Saplings, creative sprouts in which image and text challenge each other, the whole always being more than the sum of its parts. From one of these Saplings grew a complete graphic poem, STROOM (Stream), that was published in the fall of 2018. They are currently working on an children's book together, due to appear in September 2019.

Both Christophe and Kirstin are music lovers: we have a large collection of cds and we each play several instruments. The piano, djembé and guitar can be used by all music-loving couch surfers who feel like sharing their melodies with us.

Our son Sobran was born in 2009 and is a happy child with a mind of his own. We try to raise him well, setting him limits but offering him opportunities, teaching him respect for other people, nature and the planet.

Travellers be warned! Sobran can be shy at first, but when he takes a liking to you he will show you his toys, books and super heroes. He might even challenge you to a fight!
He loves being read to, mostly in Dutch, but he adores an "exotic" element and he is getting the hang of English. The chances that upon arrival you will find yourself holding a children's book with the sweet yet very insistent demand that it is you who is reading him his bedtime story is quite realistic... :)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

We would like to be a window to the world: a place for people to disembark for a while, allowing both sides to share in the experience. Every traveller you meet along the way is a guide in his own right.

We've hosted quite a few travellers now: backpackers, cyclists, families and couples. We always look forward to hosting, but we do like to point out a few things. Like everyone else we learn through experience...

* CHECK OUR LOCATION BEFORE YOU ASK TO STAY:
We get a lot of requests that go: 'Hi, I want to visit Brussels, can I stay with you?'
This is very annoying. We live in Hamme, a small rural vilage with poor public transportation . We are NOT the Couch for you if you want to close the door to our house, get on a subway and visit Brussels, Gent or any of the other major cities. We are in the middle of nowhere, so to speak. We are a handy location if you are travelling by car or bike (or if you don't mind commuting long hours by bus and train).

* OFFER SOMETHING IN RETURN
We are old-school hosts, meaning that we like to be generous, but we also like something in return from our guests. We like to spend time with you if we can, we will gladly put an extra plate for supper, share information about the region or lend you a bike. In return we would like you to help out a little in the household, and if you are staying for more than one night we would appreciate it very much if you'd supply supper and/or cook a meal.

Interests

literature
music
bikes and cycling
computers and data management
culture and history
ecology
children and education

• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• literature
• education
• cooking
• gardening
• reading
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• piano
• cycling
• sports
• ecology
• teaching
• history
• journalism
• medicine
• religion
• tourism
• graphic novels
• graphic arts
• illustraton

Music, Movies, and Books

Kirstin is a writer and literary critic. Needless to say books are a very important feature in our house.
We read mostly Dutch and English, everything from toddler's books to hermetic esoteric philosophy.
We're music lovers. We both play the guitar. Christophe also plays some flute and Kirstin plays the piano and a bit of djembé. We like to listen to all kinds of music.
We like experimental films and small quality productions. But we're not too picky. One of the films that made a huge impact on us more or less recently: Into the wild

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Life is amazing. Connecting to people in full honesty and warmth is amazing. Waking up with our son who wants to play in our bed, or looking out at the garden in the morning sunlight is amazing.
We consider ourselves fortunate people, and we are happy and grateful because of this.

Teach, Learn, Share

The right people tend to meet at the right time. If you've read our profile and you're attracted to staying with us, we're sure we'll have something meaningful to teach or learn from each other. We're open to every experience and grateful for it.

Countries I’ve Visited

Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belgium, Ecuador, South Africa, United States

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