CURRENT MISSION

to find the ultimate mojito

ABOUT ME

dad's german, mum's scotish, born in australia, had a year of working after high school, moved to melbourne, started studying, lived at college for a year, moved out, battled through a double degree and an honours year, am working as a research associate for a school of government and about to undertake a master of public policy and management.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

It all started in a pub seven years ago when I met two young German boys in need. It continued with a Dutch, an Italian, two French, one German, a Swiss, a Canadian, two Swedes, another German, staying with a French-Belgian couple in China, another German and very generous offers from a whole host of people overseas.

Interests

Music is nice. Festivals are fun.

Reading is also very good. And research. Coffee helps as well.

I really like toast. Tea, toast, and nutbars.

I also quite like my bicycle. It gets me places.

• festivals
• coffee
• marathon
• running
• pub crawls
• reading
• music
• canoeing
• snowboarding
• public policy

Music, Movies, and Books

MOVIES: American Beauty, anything by Tarantino, or anything of the exploitation genre e.g. Hobo With a Shotgun/Machete/Grindhouse), anything by Hayao Miyazaki, also any B-grade flick involving large animals e.g. Dino-shark, Piranha, JAWS! I did see a fantastic Iranian vamp film recently, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Brilliant.

Music: The Avalanches, Band of Horse, Beastie Boys, The Beatles, The Black Keys, The Drums, Dr. John, El Guincho, The Knife, Foster the People, Girltalk, Grinderman, James Blake, Jurassic 5, Little Dragon, Little Red, Phosphorescent, Regurgitator, Reverend Horton Heat, The Strokes, The Xx, Tame Impala, Vance Joy, Wavves, Ween, The White Stripes. I'm missing lots.

BOOKS: Anything by Haruki Murakami, particularly Norwegian Wood and the Wild Sheep Chase, 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, Sabbath's Theatre by Philip Roth, Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome is possibly one of the funniest things I have ever read.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Bulgarian horseriding seems to take the cake, although my near death experience canoeing down a river in Cesky Krumlov may be up there also... surviving an attack of gastro 20 km into Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan, China is also up there - or maybe being kidnapped by some Belgians for the weekend and taken to Seville. Yeah.

Snowboarding in Sierra Nevada was also rad, except the part where I was sprayed with a tonne of snow by a cheeky Swede (who I have since convinced to move to Melbourne and marry me). Or running the Melbourne half-marathon in 2012. That was memorable.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you to love nutbars. And I can show you my tomato plants. I might even share my nutbars.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia

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