CURRENT MISSION

I want to be the kind of person who grows up with stories to tell.

ABOUT ME

First off, be sure to check out my baller roomie as well! (I know. Her profile is approximately 1/10000th the size of mine. It's cool). Aleena Esmail: https://www.couchsurfing.org/profile.html?id=5H54WNEK5

I'm an adventurous 21 year old from Canada. Growing up I spent a lot of time camping, so I love to get out and experience nature. I've had an incredible time over the last year exploring Europe (Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Spain, and now Norway and Iceland!) and meeting some of the most incredible people! I'm pretty excited to be back in my beloved Canada though-at least for a few months. My favourite thing in the world is the Belgian (and to an extent French, Spanish, etc) tradition of kissing people on the cheeks every time you enter and leave a place. It shows that you recognize and appreciate their presence.

PHILOSOPHY

While I'm always excited for my next great adventure, it's important to take the time to appreciate where you are and who you are with at this exact moment in time. In the end, those will be the memories you keep with you.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm pretty new to the CS family, but have had nothing but outrageously positive experiences thus far:). From what I can tell, getting a roof is only a secondary bonus to the CS experience...what you really get is a built in opportunity to meet interesting people from all over.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

It would be impossible to talk about CS experiences without relaying the tale of the couch: First night in Oslo my host asks me to help him pick up a couch. Literally. We pick up a couch, carry it to the subway, sit on it in the subway, get kicked off the subway for having a couch, get on another subway, carry the couch to his dorm, disassemble it to get it through the door, reassemble it after getting it through the door, and finally I proceed to sleep on it for two weeks because Viktor (my host) is the most amazing person ever and I never wanted to leave.

All of my other experiences have been similarly amazing. Through both surfing and hosting I've met some of the most compassionate, fun, adventurous, interesting people I'll probably ever have the pleasure of knowing. My friends say my life is a CS advertisement, since I met my long-term partner via CS: I stayed on his boat for five days, and, well, now it's been a year.

Interests

Anything involving the outdoors, especially things like winter camping and ski dooing. In school I study human rights, so I'm always up for a chat about social equality/environmentalism. Mostly I'm just really laid back and like to talk to new people, to experience new things, to eat (anything and everything), to read whatever I can get my hands on, and to make sure that I'm taking advantage of all of the amazing opportunities I've had to see the world. Random info: I'm probably overly protective of my mug collection, but I have one from every place I've been! I eat basically everything with chop sticks, I have a bad habit of adopting stray animals, I was once given a lesson in proper american film culture...from my Belgian cousins. I often find myself setting up my tent in my backyard at 2 in the morning just because I like how crisp dawn is. I read lists from the bottom-up and my book shelves are organized first by genre and then alphabetically. I chose my major (human rights) out of a literal hat, and it was the greatest decision I never made. If you are one of the poor souls who lives in a graham cracker-less country and thus has never tried a s'more, let me know and I will ship you some, because everyone deserve s'more (yay bad puns!). I have a tendency to treat people I've just met like I've known them for forever, which I guess can be a bit awkward/forward, but has lead to some incredible and deep friendships.

• animals
• dogs
• culture
• books
• folklore
• dancing
• human rights
• cooking
• vegetarian
• boating
• outdoor activities
• fishing
• camping
• surfing
• skiing
• swimming

Music, Movies, and Books

My taste in music and movies tends to be like my taste in food--I will eat pretty much anything. Reading-wise I spend most of my time in the land of fiction (drama, occasionally sci-fi, etc) although I'm a firm supporter of the idea of the life-long learner, so I also read a lot of non-fiction and academic articles. I have read almost every great american classic, although I didn't necessarily love all of them. I don't watch much TV although Game of Thrones is my jam and I'm helpless against the lure of late night NCIS/House/etc reruns.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Swimming off of the coast of Sardinia on New Years.
Couchsurfing on a subway. Literally.
Coming home after a year abroad to my two dogs. <3

Teach, Learn, Share

My interests are so varied that it's hard to list what I could teach you. I could tell you about my beloved Canada, about dancing with the locals in Ireland, about the Supreme Court rulings on DOMA in the US, about the best techniques for not freezing while ice fishing. I could teach you Belgian card games and Spanish vegetarian cooking. Anything I don't know I'd love to google together:)

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, Ireland