I think my life is a trip filled with multiple adventures. Big adventures, daily adventures, exotic adventures, adventures around the corner, adventures that last only a few minutes. I liked climbing the mountain on Ilha Grande in Brasil, but I also love to make the waiters in my favourite restaurants laugh, time and time again. I like theater, I love knitting in a park, having breakfast with friends, hitchhiking, riding my bicycle in the rain, swimming in the sea, a river or lake, finding a perfect second hand dress, Belgian beer, obscure pop artists, staring out of train windows, reading a novel out loud to my boyfriend,...

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

A single evening with the right inhabitant of any place reveals more about it than a pile of travel guides. On the other hand, hosting is like travelling in two countries at once: your own and that of your guests.

Interests

Making people smile by doing something very clumsy - never on purpose, of course. Walking through the city very slowly, feeling how in my head something new wakes up.

• books
• theater
• breakfast
• beer
• walking
• politics
• reading
• traveling
• knitting
• cycling
• camping
• rock climbing
• swimming
• journalism
• nursing
• hitchhiking

Music, Movies, and Books

For my 14th birthday, my dad bought me a ticket for a concert of Eels in Antwerp. He is still my favourite and I saw him perform on, I guess, eight different occasions. But apart from a faithful fan I'm also a restive explorer of music, travelling from delicate singersongwriters to intelligent hiphop, from modern classical experiments to slightly mad folkpop. Just have a look at www.last.fm/user/joszje.

As a reader, I enjoy fiction, for instance by David Mitchell, Lionel Shriver, Hanif Kureishi, and others, as you can see on http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9744573-jozefien
. I know I should read more non-fiction, but I don't really know where tot start... Recommendations are more than welcome.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I witnessed a lot of small, but incredibly beautiful stories, often through my job as a journalist - but of course they touch me as a person too. I saw a sixty-year-old man, learning to ride a bike. I sang with young people in prison. I met a male nurse who started an organisation to bring people to the coast or to their favourite place, even if they are too ill to leave their bed. I got beautiful letters about friendship for live. I ate with people in a Jordan refugee camp. Stories like these are behind every corner, and for me they make life wonderful.

Teach, Learn, Share

I just like to discover quotidian life, wherever I go. Through it, I learn about cultures, politics, love... and about what all of us have in common.

Countries I’ve Visited

Brazil, Burundi, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belgium