CURRENT MISSION

Living the dream

ABOUT ME

I grew up in Northern Ireland which is a beautiful country with great people and even better pubs but I havent lived there in a long time. I'm a bit of a goof. I love meeting new people, water fights, vegan cheesecake, reading, politics, making silly faces at kids, bikes, good food, fine wine, even better company and conversation, music (from heavy metal to trip hop, irish folk to whimsy indie), practical jokes, playing guitar (badly), gigs, comedy, travelling and generally collecting items for the memory bank. I strongly believe in human nature and that as long as fun is being had then all is well. I just want to have as many great times as i can and want to meet like minded people.

PHILOSOPHY

Have a great time, all the time.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I discovered Couchsurfing about 10 years ago and it has changed the way I travel and see life. My first experience was when I couchsurfed my way across Canada and it gave me such an amazing view of how the world should work. It is an ideal that is such a great idea. I have rarely hosted, basically because I move around a lot, but hopefully that will all change very soon.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

All have been fantastic :)

Interests

I am interested in things that are interesting and fun. So basically - doing fun stuff and interesting activities.

• dining
• cooking
• wine
• pub crawls
• politics
• reading
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• fishing
• hiking
• camping
• skydiving

Music, Movies, and Books

Books - Fave ever is 1984, and everything by George Orwell. I also recommend the Preacher comics, The People's Act of Love by James Meek, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale, anything by Joseph Conrad, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Lovely Bones, One Hundred Years of Solitude, anything and everything by James Ellroy, Phillip Henscher and the writings of James Baldwin, and any dirty cheap 60s pulp fiction i can get my hands on.

Films - Irreversible, Amelie, Airplane, Swingers, Brick, Funny Games, Pi, The Lives of Others, Starship Troopers, Calvaire, Star Wars, Martyrs, The Blair Witch Project, The Babadook, blah blah blah.

As for music, I grew up on heavy metal, still love it and love rocking out but also into folk, good hip hop, indie (The Smiths, Belle and Sebastian, The Butterflies of Love etc), swing, anything i can tap my toes to or shake a tail feather to.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I taught English to 5 year olds in Ethiopia for a year. I camped by the ridge of The Grand Canyon on a drive from New York to Los Angeles. I travelled from Indonesia to Belfast overland over the course of a year. I celebrated Ligo in the Latvian woods with dumplings, saunas and coffee scrubs. I shared drinks and incomprehensible stories with people on the Trans-Siberian Railway. I walked 615kms of El Camino de Santiago in 23 days.
Sleeping in a van at Aoraki in New Zealand at the height of winter. Harpoon fishing in Indonesia.

Teach, Learn, Share

I really love cooking so I can whip up something special with only a few ingredients. Like Macgyver I guess. But most of all i want to throw myself into this. I can definitely learn a lot, not sure what i can teach - others will have to figure that out. I'm looking forward to doing so.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Stories from far away lands. Smiles. Kindness. Beers and laughs. Different ways of looking at the world. And hopefully connections that create unity and make the world a slightly better place.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Bermuda, Cambodia, Canada, China, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Ecuador, Indonesia, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom

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