I was born in the USSR and moved over to the US when I was four years old, living on food stamps in the projects. My family worked ridiculously hard to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and open up a world of opportunities for me, and I'm so grateful to them for this.
I was fortunate enough to study abroad in Spain in college, which made me fall in love with traveling and I realized I want to do it for the rest of my life. I love working with the underserved and am still figuring out my life plans for how to combine my love of travel with providing medical care to those who need it most. After completing residency, I stayed on as faculty for a few years as director of a track focused on providing care in low-resource settings.
I worked hard and started experiencing some burn-out. I got married in April 2024 and we decided to take a year off from work to travel and then figure out what our lives have in store for us next. We hope to meet you on our journey!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I joined when I was interviewing across the country for residency programs, and I stayed because I love what Couchsurfing represents!
I just logged back on after about 10 years now that we're able to travel more. We also realized we might be too old for some hostels but were missing out on meeting interesting people on our travels, so we figured couchsurfing was a perfect way to continue meeting people!

Interests

Music, travel, languages, medicine, psychology, people, trivia nights, photography, yoga

• photography
• dining
• yoga
• trivia
• traveling
• stamps
• music
• bungee jumping
• languages
• medicine
• psychology
• study abroad

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Tool, NIN, Portishead, Metric, Explosions in the Sky, etc
Movies: Black Swan, Inception, Requiem for a Dream, Closer, V for Vendetta, Pan's Labyrinth
Books: Middlesex, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Slaughterhouse Five, The Great Gatsby

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Bungee jumped off a bridge in Banos, Ecuador

Teach, Learn, Share

I love teaching, learning, and sharing!

What I Can Share with Hosts

I have some pretty interesting stories! And have been to lots of countries and am happy to answer questions or give advice!

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Wales

Countries I’ve Lived In

Spain, Ukraine, United States