CURRENT MISSION

exploring life from the parent's side

ABOUT ME

We love to travel and explore new cultures. Amanda loves to cook and enjoys learning new ethnic culinary sensations, provided you can stomache some Canadian cuisine in return. Mike is more of an outdoorsy type, typically Canadian in that way, but he also loves challenging debates and learning new things with his insatiable curiosity. We are both big readers and lovers of live theatre and indi film. Blissfully married five years, we decided shake it up and travel around the world for a year. We returned from that amazing journey in 2010.

And now for the boring small print:
We are both non-smokers, and are light drinkers. No drugs of any sort.

Amanda used to be a vegetarian, but has recently crossed over. Mike is an enthusiastic meat eater!

If you meet us don't assume Mike has a beard like in his pic. The beard comes and goes.

PHILOSOPHY

The golden rule: "treat others as you would have them treat you".

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We joined the CS project just before our world tour in 2009, so for the first year our only opportunity to participate in CS was meeting some great hosts. Upon our return home we've been glad to give back to the CS community by hosting. But now with a new baby our hosting has its limits. Besides - I'm not sure there are many people who would want to stay in a baby infested house. And not to be rude, but one baby in the house is enough (sorry, no guests with kids).

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We have surfed in Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Australia/New Zealand.

Interests

Mike loves many sports - favorites are mountain biking, squash, snow boarding, and a little ice climbing. I also enjoy surfing on the computer and I love to travel and meet people and learn about their part of the world.

Amanda loves reading, drawing, designing, and pretty much anything creative.

• dining
• cooking
• vegetarian
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• drawing
• cycling
• surfing
• skiing
• sports
• rock climbing
• racquetball
• squash

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: Count of Monte Cristo, everything by James Clavelle (Tai Pan, Gai Jin, Shogun, etc.) two greats by Ken Follet: Pillars of the Earth, and World Without End. Also, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell was amazing!

Amanda's List:
The Shadow of the Wind, the Harry Potter Series, Classics, Angela's Ashes, The life of Pi (a must read on anyones travels)and Shantaram

Movies: We love indie films: Amile, Barbarian Invasions, Seducing Dr. Lewis, Juno, Napoleon Dynamite, Spell Bound, Station Agent, Waking Life, War Photographer, etc.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

One "cool" thing Mike has done is participate in a ski expedition to the magnetic north pole. We were three weeks out on the ice. Ask me if we made it all the way....

A second thing is that Mike recently applied to the Canada Space Agency in their astronaut recruitment program. Ask me how far I got!

And a third amazing thing we did as a couple was quit our jobs and travel the WORLD for 400 days (that's one year + one month + one week).

Teach, Learn, Share

Mike loves to learn about ANYTHING. I am curious to the extreme.

Amanda is a bit of a chef and enjoys to learn how to prepare food from all corners of the world. I also enjoy designing, home renos, and movie nights

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Botswana, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Malawi, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam, Virgin Islands, U.S., Zambia

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, Germany, Taiwan

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