CURRENT MISSION

Carpe diem

ABOUT ME

I'm the average Joe with nothing extraordinary to tell. Or maybe not.

PHILOSOPHY

Carpe diem, obviously. Enjoy life and everything it gives you, without too much fuss. Life's to short to shorten it further. Cooperate, competition is a kind of mental defense we living beings developed for self-preservation, but now that we became racional we must replace it by cooperation.
So, all considered, my motives are clear: it doesn't pay to be a somber unhappy person, so I tend to be optimistic about life, and adopt a peaceful and enjoying position.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Since August 2011, and following good examples I found during my travels, I decided to further commit myself to the CS community by volunteering to translate the website to Portuguese (Portugal). This is a way to give something back and show my gratitude to everyone for the outstanding experiences I had the luck to live within the community :)

Hosted

Vedran (Italy)

Been hosted by

Filippo Cattaneo (Italy)
Giovanni Parrachino (Italy)
Vedran (Italy)
Inti Bertocchi (Italy)
Edyta Bartoś (Poland)
Jessica Melhuse (USA)
Marianne Evensen (Norway)
Mari Soiela (Estonia)
Laura (Estonia)
Hanna Lundholm (Sweden)
Felipe Albrecht (Latvia)
Arlette Vanhauw (Belgium)
Laurent Capello (Italy)
Bertrand Morgenthal (Belgium)
Frank Verhart (Netherlands)
Marten Knol (Netherlands)

Travelled with

Edyta Bartoś (Poland)
Jessica Melhuse (USA)
Alisa Rhodes (USA)
Xosé Gil (Spain)
Joaquim Bourbon (Portugal)
Filipe Nuno (Portugal)
Susana Guerreiro (Portugal)
João Magalhães (Portugal)

Meetings / Events

12º meeting CS "vigosemueve" @ Maispala 7/10/2011 (Spain)
CS Minho monthly dinner Oct'11 (Portugal)
Guided mushroom tour 2011 13th August (Norway)
50th Lisbon CS Monthly Dinner (Portugal)
Some Bath (UK) monthly meetings

Also, I met lots of people and did my best to get new friends to join CS :)

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I made three main CS trips. The first to Italy, the second to the Netherlands and Belgium, the third to Italy again and in the following weeks to Belgium, Latvia, Sweden, Estonia, Norway and Ireland. I enjoyed every bit of them, but on the second I discovered I should take more care when evaluating the mental character of people... I sometimes tend to be very gullible, and can't really understand some particulars of human behavior. However, valuable lessons are always learned with little situations like this one, and in the end everything is sorted out quite right :)

Interests

Music: I love music. Really. I play in a tuna (not the fish, just search on youtube for "imperialis tuna" or "imperialis tunix", and you'll see what I mean). I also love such monsters like Pink Floyd and others. What I can stand is trance and all those riffrafff...

Literature: Now, here is something I could write a lot about, but will spare you the burden of trying to make any sense of it. I must confess I am a reader. Seriously, one of those people who actually reads! And reading is a considerable time-consuming hobby. I read things from the best authors to the most obscure, from Gabriel Garcia Márquez to Terry Pratchett, from Frank Herbert to José Saramago and V.S. Naipaul.

Computing: That's a main interest. You see, computing is a childhood's passion for me which I didn't translate in a university career. Long story short, everything I know about it (which isn't just how to switch the computer on and off or how to use facebook to check on other people's lives) I learned by myself. I even own a little software development company. I'm not much of a computer games player nowadays, but I used to be a nerd in the old times...
I'm also what you could certainly consider a mac fan. Apple rules ;)

Sports: Yes, I'm a supporter of Vitória de Guimarães, the local football (soccer for you, americans...) team of my hometown.

Other stuff: lots of them. Right now my interests include astrophysics, game theory and ancient Roman history. And I'm not kidding.

• fish
• literature
• partying
• politics
• reading
• drawing
• music
• fishing
• sports
• soccer
• history
• mathematics
• religion
• science
• software
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Il Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, Braveheart, La Vita è Bella...
Music: Pink Floyd
Books: Too many to remember them all, but general literature, scifi, fantasy, historical are among my faves.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The sky full of stars in a memorable night with friends from my tuna in 1998. This may not sound too amazing to you, but if you consider I hadn't the opportunity to see so many stars all my life due to my sight impairment...

Teach, Learn, Share

I would gladly share my (supposed) knowledge with anyone who would wish to hear me, and teach me something in return. I (supposedly) know many things, but these are none compared to the infinitude of what I don't understand.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Sit by the fire and tell tales or times past. Not really a fire tho, but my living room has a heater if that's any help...

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom

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