CURRENT MISSION

Make friends, understand more cultures than my own, improve my Spanish

ABOUT ME

I'm 72, retired lawyer who spends his time now translating books from Spanish to English, mainly from Latin America and making ceramics and am the author of one non fiction book, Potiphar's Wife: The Vatican's Secret and Child Sexual Abuse (ATF Press 2014). I have travelled a lot and go overseas once a year, often for sea kayaking trips with friends.

PHILOSOPHY

I like to share what I have, within reason, and to enjoy good conversation about all sorts of things, particularly over a BBQ and a glass of wine and to understand other cultures.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I have a house on the beach that is too big for one person and am willing to share it with congenial people.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have always had a continuous stream of foreigners staying at my house over the last 42 years, starting from early backpacker friends and then about 150 German law students who worked at my office over a period of 25 years, and from 1976 to 2001, there was a continuous stream of hang glider and paraglider pilots passing through. Then there were the Spanish speakers who helped me learn that wonderful language. I have travelled extensively by staying with friends in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America.

Interests

Philosophy, literature, music of all types but particularly classical. Am interested in reading books in Spanish and translating them into English. So far I have translated 12, mainly from Colombian authors. I also make ceramics, both functional things and sculptures using porcelain. I used to be a very keen surfer and hang glider pilot, but with reflexes slowing down a bit, I now do a lot of sea kayaking along the coast where I live, trolling for fish at the same time. After retirement from my law practice, I took an interest in the reasons for the cover up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and returned to the study of canon law. The result of that was Potiphar's Wife: The Vatican's Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, about the role of canon law in the cover up.

Music, Movies, and Books

I enjoy movies, but am more a book person. A read a lot, mostly in Spanish. Recent books that I have read that I enjoyed are La Fiesta del Chivo of Mario Vargas Llosa, Vivir Para Contarlo by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Homo Sapiens by Antonio Velez (which I translated for him), El Olvido Que Seremos and Angosta by Hector Abad Faciolince and La mujer de los condenados by Javier Correa(which I also translated). Of English books, Bomb Book and Compass by Simon Winchester, Collapse and Guns Germs and Steel by Jarrod Diamond, and Commonwealth of Thieves by Thomas Kenneally, Dawkins's The God Delusion and then McGrath's The Dawkins Delusion (always important to get both points of view), Yuval Harari´s Sapiens and Homo Deus, and Mauricio Garcia Villegas´ El orden de la libertad. My favourite music is that of Bach, then Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mahler, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Shostakovitch, Sibelius. But I have recently started listening to more jazz, particularly the more experimental jazz.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Being born and surviving.

Teach, Learn, Share

Am very keen to speak Spanish with anyone, but of course, that is not a criterion for staying and to share interests and activities.

What I Can Share with Hosts

A nice secluded house on the beach in a small village 60 kms south of Sydney, surrounded by parkland.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Norway, Peru, Russian Federation, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe

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