Hi, I am Lisa from Germany :-) I was an active CouchSurfer in 2018-19 and deactivated my account after CouchSurfing became payable in 2020. I have now (as of October 2024) reactivated it and want to try whether CouchSurfing can still be as amazing as it was back then after the community probably shrunk and changed quite a bit.

Unfortunately, I found that many people now use CouchSurfing as a kind of dating platform, and I want to make clear from the beginning that this is NOT what I am looking for here!!

Since I recently finished my bachelor in Computational Linguistics, I am on the one hand applying for masters in Taiwan or mainland China, and on the other hand using this intermediate time to travel around Europe a bit and try to find my old self again, or make a new self :-)

What do I mean by this? Well, traveling during my gap year in 2017-18 was a transformative experience for me. Back then, I went to France, China, Taiwan and Nepal volunteering, couchsurfing, meditating, trekking and also just being a tourist sometimes. I loved meeting all those international people, trying new kinds of food, learning languages, having an amazing time together with all the different people I met, being inspired through traveling. I learned a lot during that time, most importantly becoming much more self-confident and getting a more positive perspective on the world due to all the kindness I received.

Unfortunately, I have partly lost this transformed self again during my long stay in Tübingen while studying and most importantly during the Corona pandemic. Therefore, I want to go out and see the world again; meet, live, and work with different kinds of people, have meaningful conversations, participate in purposeful projects, test my own limits, and find my own goals.

Warum ich bei Couchsurfing bin

CouchSurfing is an amazing invention! It's a great opportunity to get in touch with locals. If you get to know locals, share their lifestyle and get to know the place from their point of view, you can learn much more about the country or city you're visiting than an "ordinary" tourist living in a hotel. In addition, it's just practical for travelling. You can find a place to stay and a person to show you around all over the world, even if you don't have a lot of money, which is the case for me in the moment. And of course you can make friends all over the world! :)

I first got CouchSurfing just to find a place to stay, but after doing hangouts, participating in meetups and finally also being hosted, I discovered that CouchSurfing offers much more than that. It helped me several times to conquer my loneliness while travelling and after meeting so wonderful and generous hosts who accepted me in all kinds of conditions, I decided to give something back and host people as well, so that I could keep the travelling world inside my life while studying in Tübingen, Germany.

Unfortunately the situation changed in 2020 with the Corona pandemics and Couchsurfing suddenly requiring payment, which at the time would not at all have been worth it, as traveling and hosting were out of the question. Therefore, I deactivated my account and only reactivated it now that I am entering the traveling world again. I hope to still be able to get some authentic traveling experiences and encounters out of CouchSurfing even after the changes it has experienced throughout these years.

Unfortunately, I found that many people now use CouchSurfing as dating platform or cheaper hostel, and I want to make clear from the beginning that those two things are not what I am looking for here.

Interessen

I love learning languages and comparing their structure. I have been learning Mandarin Chinese for quite a while now and want to go to Taiwan or Mainland China for my master studies.

I enjoy biking as a means of transport, since it is both healthy and good for the environment.

I am an absolute foodie (sometimes a bit more than would be good for me...) and a vegan. I love vegan cooking and baking. I do have a serious sugar addiction, which I try to control by eating less sweet kinds of sweets and sweet-fasting six weeks every year.

I care about the environment and sustainability and like to get involved in projects or organizations around those topics. I have recently taken a course about Syntropic Agroforestry, a concept that I can really recommend if you are interested in growing food without degrading the soil and destroying ecosystems. I can also really recommend Cradle to Cradle, a concept for designing products that are made to circulate and do not harm humans or the environment. I have been active in the Cradle to Cradle NGO during my studies in Tübingen, Germany. There is also a Cradle to Cradle label that you can find on a few products (go to https://c2ccertified.org/certified-products for examples).

• meditation
• logic
• learning languages
• sustainability
• biking
• making music
• vegan cooking
• chinese culture
• philosophical conversations
• mandarin
• cradle to cradle
• syntropic agroforestry

Musik, Filme und Bücher

I like all music that has a nice melody and not too much noise, mostly calm and carrying a lot of emotions. I like to listen to music in many different languages and would love some recommendations about music in your language :-) I also like to make music myself by singing and playing a few chords on the guitar (the few I can play^^).

I used to read a lot of fiction when I was in school (6-16 years old), but then stopped because I wanted to live in the real world rather than some fiction, and never really got back into the habit. If a book really captures me, I can still spend a lot of time reading though :-)

I now have a similar problem with TV series as the one I had back then with books, so I have been staying away from them for the last few months. Before, I watched many many series, but you probably won't know a lot of them unless you are from China ;D I do love to learn languages from books or movies - actually books are normally my preferred method, but with Chinese, reading is way harder than listening due to the thousands of characters they have, so I discovered series for myself - there are luckily many Chinese series with English subtitles on YouTube.

In terms of genres, I like romance, comedy, crime, adventure, and sci-fi :-) And I prefer stories with a happy ending^^

I would like to read more non-fiction as well, but somehow I need this "What will happen next?!" kind of feeling to get into the flow of reading, so I haven't really finished any non-fiction book yet.

Eine tolle Erfahrung, die ich gemacht habe

- Devoting myself to French, doing a student exchange and changing to a school in another town in order to do AbiBac (Franco-German high school graduation), at the age of 15. Not even mainly because I love learning languages, but because these were the first life decisions I took on my own, without being motivated by my parents or friends; and living in a guest family in France and in a boarding home in Rostock, where my new school was, made me much more independant.

- Starting to do workcamps with my best friend, which made me get in contact with people from all over the world for the first time in my life. Most importantly, my "Magic Workcamp" in Laubau at the age of 17 transformed me a lot. I met many wonderful people from different countries and learned to enjoy my time with people instead of worrying about how they see me ♡ A skill that I want to learn better again recently!

- My gap year: living in a yurt and cooking outside for nearly one month in France, leaving Europe and going to Asia for the first time in my life (all alone in addition), asking for the way with my three words of Chinese and meeting a lot of wonderful people who went out of their way to help me, discovering CouchSurfing and wonderful CouchSurfers, learning how to get around and survive on my own (I'm still too bad at it though and I still need to figure out what I want^^)

- Agents of Change, a training in Czech Republic (it also takes place in Hungary) for group and youth leaders, that makes you work on yourself a lot. I participated in 2018 and it helped me to connect more with my own values and the emotional part of my mind, to be more honest and discover new dimensions of friendship ♡ If anyone is interested, I can tell you more about it ;p

- Most recently, finally finishing my bachelor, which I had practically stopped believing in^^

Lehren, lernen, teilen

I could try to teach you German or French or some basic Chinese. I'm not a professional, but I will try my best ;-) I would be delighted if you could teach me any other language in return :-) And of course I like to exchange information about German culture and your country's culture :-) I also like music and singing, but my knowledge of songs is somewhat limited because I only listen to the songs I have downloaded to my phone - so don't hesitate to make me discover something new ;p I'm learning the guitar to accompany myself singing, so some help in this domain would be very welcome :D

Was ich mit Gastgebern teilen kann

I'm just a normal girl from Germany with not a lot of life experience yet, but I am curious and eager to gain more life experience :D If you host me, I will be very grateful and of course I will try to help you where I can :) Maybe I can bake a cake or cookies or cook a meal for you :P If you want to learn German or French or your first few words of Chinese, I could try to teach you a bit. I am not a professional, but I will try my best ;-) And of course I would be delighted to share some relaxed time and maybe some travelling stories with you ;-)

Länder, die ich besucht habe

Andorra, Austria, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine

Länder, in denen ich gelebt habe

France, Germany, Norway