CURRENT MISSION

Live life to the max! We like challenges and to help others overcome theirs.

ABOUT ME AND MY GIRLFRIEND (now: wife)

Adventurous, rock climbers, hikers! We love the smell of freshly mown grass on a spring morning. And Jochem will take off his shirt in a thunderstorm on a hot summer evening (unfortunately we don't have that many hot summer evenings in the Netherlands)...

We love to share life experiences and we want to leave a legacy in one way or another.

PHILOSOPHY

To live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We have traveled a lot and we know we appreciated it when locals offered us their home/couch/food. We would like to do the same to travellers in Leiden.

Interests

We love to have barbecues in our (small) backyard. Furthermore, we grow our own vegetables and try to learn as much as possible about gardening! We like creative stuff: for instance, we like to make wooden furniture and Jochem has done a course in blacksmithing and making of stained-glass windows, while Karin did courses in painting and graphic design.

Karin finished her masters in Conflict Studies and Human Rights and loves to philosophize on the topics, while Jochem is the real beta: studying the stars he loves maths, and now teaches mathemetics and physics! :-)

• design
• graphic design
• human rights
• dining
• gardening
• painting
• hiking
• rock climbing
• mathematics
• physics

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

After we got married, we took a one-year-rock-climbing- around-the-world honeymoon! Amazing experiences and people made us humble and thankful for being able to do this.

Climbing and hiking in the Himalaya was amazing and awe inspiring. Beautiful sights, lovely nature, great people in lovely small villages!

Jochem worked for a NGO in Mali and met the most inspiring local communities of which some had never seen a foreigner before.

Karin volunteered in building projects in Eastern Europe and social projects in central and south America!

Countries I’ve Visited

Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Laos, Malaysia, Mali, Montenegro, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Argentina, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guatemala, Mali, Netherlands, Nicaragua