CURRENT MISSION

Bring people back to the center.

ABOUT ME

My name is Martin, I am law student in Massachusetts. I love to travel! I just finished sailing a 24 foot boat from San Francisco to Hawaii. I also rode my bicycle down the Pacific coast and backpacked through Patagonia.

I have been to Europe a few times, mostly Germany; I am of German decent. Next on my list are Greece, Sweden, England, Australia, the Azores, and some places in southeast Asia.

I am a sailor, so I would really like to sail around the world at one point in my life, particularly to the azores, though the Med, and around Greece. By the way, check out this site if you want to catch a ride on a sailing boat. www.floatplan.com It is pretty cool and I plan on using it eventually. I am a pretty active guy, I love to hike, sail, boat, and try new things.

I am pretty handy; I can fix damn near anything. I am a law student mostly because I see that as being one of the areas that needs the most fixing.

PHILOSOPHY

I guess I try to live my life closest to Aristotle's virtue ethics. I believe in moderation of everything, but that means I need to try everything. Its a hard objective to fulfill, but I live my life trying to fulfill it. The way I see it, it may be impossible to do everything in life, but I can at least get pretty damn close.

I also believe that humans are intrinsically good creatures. I dont know if the world can be a perfect place or not, but I do know that we can improve on it a great deal from what it is now. In order to do this we must shift away from individualistic and materialistic views. I really like Henry David Thoreau and the Transcendentalists.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I have lived in a house with 4 roommates, and we had several couch surfers stop by because the girls I live with are traveling next year. I loved the idea and figured I should join so that I could couch surf when abroad. I used it just a few times in South America, and now I offer it when I can.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We had about 10 couch surfers stay at our house in Santa Cruz this year, each one was a wonderful person and we had a great time showing them around. Everyone we met was very bright and amazingly well grounded. If nothing else, it is wonderful to hear the stories they have. You can learn so much about the world by learning about other cultures. I really love politics, so I was especially interested in learning about the relationships between the countries that composed what is formally known as Yugoslavia. I was able to ask about it from one of our most recent couch surfers, who was from Serbia. I was very surprised at how peaceful the breakup was from his perspective, I would have thought there would be much hostility between states that break apart.

Interests

Sailing, Skiing, Hiking, Literature, Mechanics, Electronics, anything on the water, extreme sports, beer (I make my own), music (i cant play but i love to listen), i like just about everything.

• literature
• ethics
• beer
• electronics
• boating
• politics
• traveling
• music
• hiking
• sailing
• skiing
• sports
• extreme sports
• engineering

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies- Worlds Fastest Indian, v for vendetta, all of wes anderson, inglorious bastards, pulp fiction, sherlock holmes, pirate radio, superbad, traitor, lots of others, i really like films

Music- I like all music really, I am mostly a classic rocker, and I am least interested in hip hop and metal, but ya, i like everything.

Books- Ishmael, Catcher in the Rye, Nine Stories, The Book of Joe, Harry Potter, Walden Pond, Dan Brown's stuff, I also like some poetry by Wordsworth and tennyson.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

this is a hard one, i guess the most amazing thing i have ever done is to make a girl fall in love with me, but that is in the past now.

Teach, Learn, Share

I know a lot about sailing and skiing, I am certified in teaching both. I am also very good at construction, I know how to wire a house, do plumbing, and frame a wall. I know quite a bit of western philosophy and I know American Government.

I really want to learn more eastern philosophy and the governments of other countries. I also like literature, so any spectacular writings people have, I would love to read them.

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