CURRENT MISSION

Being productive, enjoying life and friends, and travelling closer to home.

ABOUT ME

Spent a total of about 7 years travelling (in 2 1/2 year stints), 6 years in the 60's, when I hitchhiked through Europe, N. Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and S. America. Spent 20 years in Montreal, travelled in the Pacific in the early 80's and then my husband and I moved to Kuranda, in the tropics of Far North Queensland, because he (a Frenchman) was fed up with Canadian winters. I've worked in the area of childhood disability since the early 70's, and retired in 2010. I spent a year travelling around Europe on my own in a camper van as a retirement present to myself and returned home in May 2011. I enjoy reading, walking/hiking, camping, cinema, and my husband (a visual artist) and I often offer hospitality to wwoofers and friends. Couch-surfers welcome. I've just started volunteering as an English-language tutor in a class for adult migrants/refugees in Cairns and am loving it!

PHILOSOPHY

Difficult to say..... see all the info above and below. Perhaps I'll edit this later. I usually vote Green and/or Left.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've always found the social experience of travelling, the people I meet, engage with, and learn from, extraordinarily rewarding. I often 'surfed couches' in the 60's, when people who gave me lifts also offered accommodation. I look forward to exchanging with hosts on my travels. I am accustomed to 'roughing it'

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I'm new to couch surfing. We have hosted many wwoofers (we are only informal word-of-mouth hosts)and last year I wwoofed in Japan. We have also hosted a number of overseas students and children studying English in Cairns. I couch-surfed in Italy (wonderful hosts) and we have had one couch-surfer since my return from travels in May 2011.

Interests

Travel, world news, reading, walking/hiking, music..... Love attending Music and Writers festivals and am a big fan of radio (Australia's Radio National and Canada's CBC). April 2015 - am travelling in Europe. Back in July.

• festivals
• baking
• walking
• news
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• music
• hiking
• camping
• surfing
• hinduism
• teaching
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

My all-time favourite movie is Harold and Maude (Dir: Hal Ashby). I love Across the Universe (Julie Taymor)and Tampopo (Japanese comedy about the ultimate noodle soup). I also enjoy thoughtful serious films - Skirt Day (La Journee de la Jupe), Welcome... A favourite recent book is Mr. Pip (Lloyd Jones). I like folk, blues, classical music. Love Leonard Cohen, Richard Desjardins, Jacques Brel, Joni Mitchell......

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I hitchhiked on my own through the Hindu Kush up to Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan in 1966. Pretty amazing, although at the time it seemed completely normal, so maybe it was!

Teach, Learn, Share

I have experience working with children with physical disabilities, enjoy baking (could share a really easy no-fail cake recipe!), and have taught English as a second language to adults and young children.

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