I'm from the States. I've lived in Costa Rica for over 6 years. I speak high intermediate Spanish. I worked in HR in the music industry for 7 years, directed an international study abroad organization in Costa Rica for a couple of years, worked in Boston at one of the most successful book discovery startups in the world, and launched an independent editing company, where I now lead a team of copyeditors, developmental editors, and proofreaders with a client list ranging from debut authors to USA Today bestselling fan favorites. I'm an occasional writer myself and might one day find the time to publish a book or two of my own.

I love meeting new people, but I'm an introvert so I can be a little quiet and awkward at first... Bear with me! Once I open up, I'm fun. Or so I like to think.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Some of my friends are Couchsurfing hosts and clued me into its awesomeness. :) I travel solo a lot. Unfortunately, I'm not able to host.

Interests

Writing, hiking, reading, music, travel, languages, art, scuba diving, outdoor adventures, history, and oh so much more.

• arts
• writing
• books
• dancing
• cooking
• pub crawls
• reading
• traveling
• music
• outdoor activities
• hiking
• camping
• surfing
• scuba diving
• history
• languages
• science
• study abroad
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:
Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Porcupine Tree, Smashing Pumpkins, Incubus, The Killdares, Flogging Molly, Pink Floyd, Portishead, Massive Attack, Mumford & Sons, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Alanis Morisette, Of Monsters and Men, Muse, Louis Armstrong, Etta James, Billie Holiday, Karnivool, Frank Turner, Ben Harper, and any and all Celtic music.

Books:
Wishful Drinking – Carrie Fisher
Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo
Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Girl of Fire and Thorns – Rae Carson
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
The Giver – Lois Lowry
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
A Year in Provence – Peter Mayle
The Belgariad – David Eddings
Zodiac – Neal Stephenson
Harry Potter – J.K. Rowling
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Sabriel – Garth Nix
Invisible Monsters – Chuck Palahniuk
Goose Girl – Shannon Hale
Open Veins of Latin America – Eduardo Galeano
Chaos Walking – Patrick Ness

Movies:
Stranger Than Fiction, Midnight in Paris, The Princess Bride, Fight Club, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Harry Potter, V For Vendetta

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

How can I pick one? Here's a random sample...

- Learned and lived in a different language
- Meditated at Machu Picchu (and I don't meditate)
- Lost 35 pounds / 16 kilos
- Got lost in Cairo, Egypt, as a 14-year-old
- Participated in various counterprotests against a white supremacist rally
- Sang lead vocals in a rock band
- Rappelled down and leaped off numerous waterfalls
- Sat in on a private debate in British Parliament
- Went sand tobogganing on a desert island off the coast of Australia
- Scuba dived with various sharks, turtles, and dolphins
- Flaunted my stuff at pride marches in several cities globally
- Wrote a full book, then had the self-awareness to know I wasn't ready as a writer, shelved it, and started writing a better, second one
- Walked down the beach until I could see no sign of humanity and went skinny dipping in the ocean under the stars
- Walked 15-25 kilometers in the Costa Rican countryside, rain or shine, every weekend
- Went volcano surfing in New Zealand using only a pair of boots
- Sailed down the Nile
- Drank a lot of glühwein in the snowy streets of Bavaria at Christmas
- Explored inside the smallest of the 3 Great Pyramids in Giza
- Climbed the El Castillo pyramid at Chichén Itzá
- Gazed in the eyes of Nefertiti's bust in Berlin
- Taught untrained dolphins how to play seaweed fetch... alone
- Served as a panelist expert at several young adult fiction writing conventions
- Got TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) certified
- Felt the echo of evil at a Nazi concentration camp
- Danced the Cumberland Square 8 at a ceilidh in a pub in Scotland
- Chased, but did not find, the ghost piper of Edinburgh
- Slept in a Bedouin camp under the stars in the Sahara
- Utterly failed, repeatedly, to learn how to dance salsa
- Met and cooked lunch with a Guamí-speaking hermit who had lived apart from society for 56 years on a remote beach in Panamá
- Spooned with a howler monkey all night in my bed in the Amazon Rainforest

What I Can Share with Hosts

Sense of humor, sense of adventure, good cooking, and great conversation

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Cambodia, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Ireland, Mexico, Myanmar, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Thailand, United Kingdom, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Costa Rica, United States