CURRENT MISSION

Experiencing culture shock! Meeting people who haven't yet adopted that bland global personality from their tv.

ABOUT ME

Hello everybody! I grew up in different countries and as such am a hopeless 'third culture kid' (I sometimes need subtitles when I think..), so what better place than Amsterdam to live in! This relatively small city (7500,000 people) is as cosmopolitan as others many times larger.

PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy .... mmmh... well I used to be an unworried scientific positivist but was continuously heckled by my best friend for it and so I'm now sort of a post-modern hedonist who tries not to worry too much about the true nature of reality. Thanks Niels. Spiritually I realised suddenly that I'm a naturalistic pantheist while seriously intoxicated up in a tree one night. Politically I'm a bit boring, if the global population were a 10th of what it is now and we hadn't invented gunpowder etc. I might be a anarcho-syndicalist or something, otherwise I believe in plain old participative democracy and international cooperation being the best way to stop the world from turning into Liberia. Not that I have anything against Liberians, except those warlords with names like general Butt Naked and the people who train the child soldiers etc. I think i'm getting off topic a bit.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

So far by signing up...I've also been a member of the Hospitality Club for a while but since a while I have not been very active but if you want to read more I have a more active profile there with more comments than here, my username is Peterlaw.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Been member of hospitality club for about 2 years (username: peterlaw), only hosted so far, about 2 dozen times. I found it the most interesting when people were here for a work reason, I've hosted people who were attending a mock UN conference, someone who came for an environmental conference on wetlands conservation, some people who were here for the Amnesty International film festival and 2 girls who were travelling around the world researching women's rights. Not that that should stop visitors coming for fun!

Interests

Travelling ofcourse... I like to travel cheaply and find places where there is little tourism and therefore unspoilt nature and local culture. In the sparetime that I have I like to go out a lot, Amsterdam in that sense is good because you don't quickly run out of new places to try. Other than that I like reading a lot, independent films, photography and good music. Oh yeah almost forgot; cooking and eating good food with friends.

• culture
• photography
• festivals
• dining
• cooking
• running
• walking
• clubbing
• movies
• reading
• tv
• traveling
• socializing
• music
• tourism

Music, Movies, and Books

Independent and world cinema, documentaries, any non-commercial music, I love books as long as they're not pulp. For my music taste see:

http://www.last.fm/user/PeterWilton/

For a list of some books I read:

http://www.anobii.com/people/peter/

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Uh I'll feel like I'm showing off :p

Teach, Learn, Share

I apparently sound like a tourguide when walking around my city with visitors as I'm really interested in it myself. Other than that I try to have an 'open mind' beyond the cliche of that saying, I love being right but also feel enriched if convinced that I am wrong, it means I've learned something! So if you're opinionated bring it on!

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hungary, India, Italy, Jordan, Malta, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Belgium, Germany, Lebanon, Netherlands, Sweden