CURRENT MISSION

Not sure...

ABOUT ME

I'm from the US. I grew up in Wisconsin and then began city-hopping, living in various cities on the west coast of the US and then abroad.

Since April 2009 I have been living in Paris, France, where I work as a freelance translator. I love my work, not only because it's interesting, challenging and unpredictable (in a good way), but also because it gives me a lot of flexibility in my work hours and vacation time. In theory, I can work from anywhere I can find an Internet connection.

I really like meeting people from other places and cultures and enjoy the opportunity to pick up a few words of a new language now and then.

I love the visual arts, going to museums, gazing at colors, drawing and painting, poring over interior design magazines and planning the decor at my new place.

It's always nice to meet fellow vegetarians/vegans from around the world, but what someone eats or doesn't eat is not the most important thing in life either. ;) I enjoy meeting all kinds of folks... When I hang out with non-veg people I don't bring the topic up, but if someone is interested and has questions I'm happy to share what I know.

I don't smoke and prefer to avoid spending too much time in closed places (cafés, restaurants etc.) where others are smoking.

PHILOSOPHY

Sharing, laughter, compassion, healthy choices.
A few quotes I find inspiring and try to live by, with varying degrees of success:

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." (Anonymous)

"What you do for yourself alone dies with you. What you do for others and the world remains immortal." (Albert Pike)

"Do something today that your future self will thank you for." (Anonymous)

"As long as our civilisation keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you can’t take off." (David Mitchell)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've been kind of a vagabond for the past several years, staying in places that aren't mine. But now I finally have a place of my own, so am starting to make up for the past years by hosting now!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Great experiences being hosted in France, Italy, Portugal and the US and now, finally, hosting people here in Paris.

I've also met some great people at weekly CS events and through "coffee or drink" meetups around the world. :)

Interests

Art, literature, travel, learning languages, spirituality, tiny countries

• arts
• literature
• design
• interior design
• coffee
• traveling
• socializing
• painting
• drawing
• freelancing
• languages
• visual arts
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Some of my favorite films: Hable con Ella, Volver (Pedro Almodovar), Night on Earth, Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch), La Haine, Métisse (Matthieu Kassovitz), Walk on Water (Eytan Fox), Spellbound, Rear Window, Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, L'Ecume des jours (Michel Gondry), The Life Aquatic, Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson), Eagle vs. Shark (Taika Waititi), The Hours (Stephen Daldry), Alice, Manhattan, Whatever Works, Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen), Lisbon Story, Pina (Wim Wenders).

I also like certain TV series, like Flight of the Conchords, The Big Bang Theory and Downton Abbey, although I don't have TV at my place so have to get them on DVD.

Music: Madredeus, Stereolab, My Brightest Diamond, Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, Air, Everything But The Girl, Paco Ibañez, Adanowsky, Youssou N'Dour, Caetano Veloso, Faudel, The Sea and Cake, Césaria Evora, Cocofka...

Authors: Haruki Murakami, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Amy Tan, Raymond Queneau, David Liss, David Mitchell, Hergé, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Emile Zola, Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nick Hornby, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Daniel Quinn, Toni Morrison, Tracy Chevalier, Amélie Nothomb, José Saramago, Ruth Ozeki, Muriel Barbery, David Sedaris, Vita Sackville-West, Halldór Laxness, Kazuo Ishiguro and more...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Saw the night sky over the Sahara Desert. Millions of stars twinkled in an endless blackness descending to ground level in all directions. It was breathtaking.

Spoke French with a lovely 93-year-old Flemish lady in Belgium.

Saw dolphins close to the shore at Baker Beach in San Francisco!

Watched gorgeous clouds in every color imaginable floating across the wide Icelandic skies.

Teach, Learn, Share

Practice your English, teach me some of your language! I can teach you some words/phrases in French too. My brain also stores a collection of fairly useless isolated phrases in other languages. For example, "I would like to buy a small gift" in Russian, "Did you dream about me last night?" in Arabic, "Let's go eat" in Korean and "Your bathroom is bigger than my entire apartment" in Dutch. ;)

I love languages and am perhaps a bit over-ambitious in what I try to learn (as you can see from the list of "beginner" level languages on my profile, lol...), but I think any amount of knowledge in a language is better than none. And hey, look what this guy is able to do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oudgdh6tl00

I can introduce you to the International Phonetic Alphabet, explain why it's useful (it really is!), and show you how some example words are transcribed.

Countries I’ve Visited

Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Switzerland, United States

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