CURRENT MISSION

Learn at least 10 new things, per person and per day!

ABOUT ME

Hi! Bonjour! Hola! Hey! Hej! Guten Tag!

We are a couple, 50-60 years old, french mother tongue, very open minded. Wildlife photographers (amateurs), we enjoy traveling, meeting people from other countries and cultures, and observing wildlife.

We live in Geneva (Switzerland), at 3 kms from the center. A lot of public transports are available at 2-7 min by foot. Our house is 60 years old, simple, and there is a (wild) garden, with a lot of birds and squirrels, sometimes foxes, badgers or hedgehogs come around.

We both are vegetarians and try to think "ecological" as often as we can... But without renouncing to travel ;-)

We usually travel with our "P'Ty Bus", "Ty" meaning "house" in Brittany, a French region we love, on the Atlantic coast.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We subscribed on the 9th of June 2014. We had never heard about CS before Marie read a book written by Gary Poinas "La Terre vue d'la selle"! He mentioned, several times in the book, his CS experiences all over the world, and we decided to join this community, mostly as hosts.

Since the beginning of June 2014, we have already been hosting a lot of people, sometimes being four at the same time. We had some very nice experiences, but also bad ones... Unfortunately some "surfers" think that having a couch (here a bed in a private room + bathroom), also means having every meal for free. And when sharing meals with us... Some of them keep, on a permanent way, an eye on their phone, send sms or "chat"!

Some visitors also think that the same services are "included" as in a hotel: they therefore leave the bathroom and toilets so dirty that it takes us 30 minutes to clean it after their departure, and it is the same thing with their rooms... We sometimes feel more like waiters and cleaning Lady (and Gentleman!), than hosts!

Quite a few people we've been hosting also spent a lot of time at home, not doing anything but chatting on their phones, taking showers or baths for hours, or waiting for us to do something with them, following us in each room of the house...

Hopefully, CS is also a good way to meet interesting, independent, and open-minded people :-)

So... We know that, from now, we will try to choose interesting people wishing to share some experiences or info about their country, culture, studies, etc. while having breakfasts or a meal with us, but also really wishing to visit the city, its parks, lake, museums, on their own.

We are full of hope for our further experiences!

Interests

Apart from watching nature, and practicing wildlife photography, we enjoy walking, snowshoeing, cycling, swimming, reading, observing the sky in a telescope, are interested by meteorites, love discovering new technologies, practicing languages and learning new ones, participating to webinars on several different topics, creating games for kids (in relation with nature), learning to play harmonica or woodcarving, playing billiard and ping pong... and plenty of other activities!

• wildlife
• birds
• culture
• books
• photography
• walking
• gardening
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• cycling
• snowshoeing
• swimming
• table tennis
• languages
• parks

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Transit of Venus, in front of the Midnight sun, in 2012, in Norway.

Total solar eclipses in Zambia (2001), Madrid (Spain) and Ténéré desert (Niger, 2006). We met, in the middle of nowhere, a touareg guy, to whom we gave special glasses to watch the eclipse: he had never heard about that, but thousands of tourists were there to watch this eclipse!

Being along a river, in Canada, looking for beavers and suddently facing a black bear, we had not heard arriving (1992)!

Throwing boomerang from the top of Ayers Rock, in Australia (1988).

Riding a motocycle from Geneva to Ispahan (Iran)... When it was still possible (1975)!

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Niger, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vatican City State, Zambia

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Switzerland, United Kingdom