CURRENT MISSION

I am a humorous and sociable person, like to have people around, enjoy interesting discussions and generally I am very curious about other cultures and languages.

ABOUT ME

I love music (I play the guitar and the flute), painting and drawing (esp. classical architecture), cartoons and comics (I have a collection of daily cartoons on Facebook), the arts, cycling, running (half-marathons), going out, dancing, reading, playing board games and chess ... simply i love life ... and of course travelling and meeting interesting people! :-)

By academic training I am a historian and political scientist, I also studied slavonic studies. Well, that explains a little my "professional deformation" ... I enjoy talking about the mysteries of history, current events as well as the beauty of language ... ideally over a glass of good wine :-)

My hometown is Prague, but I was born in the beautiful spa town of Marienbad. I belong to the tiny species of people who by fate and circumstance grew up on both sides of the Iron Curtain. When The Iron Curtain finally collapsed I had the right age, and so I was among the crowds when the Berlin Wall came down and waved the flag during the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution in November 1989.

I then started travelling (freeedom, yippiieee!!!) and got hooked to the European students‘ association AEGEE. I spent my studies travelling with a rucksack.

To my credit I shall say that I managed to complete my M.A. degree at Erlangen-Nürnberg University ... and then "real life" started - I had to find a job and get up at 8AM every morning ... urgh. I worked for the European Commission Delegation in Prague and became involved in the reconciliation process between Czechs and Germans.

Four years later I got fed up with dealin every day with paperwork and battling with too much bureaurocratic logic and went back to teach (European studies) in Prague and also as a visiting prof. at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. Living in the US was cool and I still deam of cruising in an old Buick down Highway 6 through the cornfields of the Midwest.

Gosh ... you still want to read on? OK. I did my PhD in 2002 (at the EUI in Florence) and then I moved to Brussels as a diplomat, where I became "Mr. Important" as Director of the Czech Cultural Centre. Haha. Later I moved over to the Czech Permanent Representation to the EU, where I dealt with Public Relations. And since February 2007 I work for the Press Service of the European Parliament.

And you know what? I am also gifted with a musical ear and so I speak (fluently) some thirteen (13) languages, including my three mother tongues: Czech, German and Serbo-Croatian. The best part of this is, that I can entertain my friends with imitating all sorts of accents in various languages.

But apart from that, I am just a normal guy who enjoys life and likes to have fun ... and does not take himself too seriously.

PHILOSOPHY

Carpe Diem.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

For a start I have a couch to offer :-)

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

none yet.

Interests

• arts
• architecture
• beauty
• dancing
• wine
• running
• comics
• cartoons
• board games
• chess
• reading
• traveling
• painting
• drawing
• music
• guitar
• cycling
• rock climbing
• history
• languages
• logic
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Among my favourite series are Star Trek and Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and also Yes, Minister. My favourite films include Contact, Blade Runner, Casablanca, I also enjoy contemporary French cinema and of course Czech movies.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The best thing? I drove to Berlin on the 9th November with a hammer in my rucksack and used it to help bring down the Berlin Wall ... but I also like to remember nights spent under the stars at the See of Galilee or on the Adriatic coast, cruising in an old Buick through the American Midwest, climbing Mayan pyramids in Yucatan, getting slightly seasick on a long rope bridge in the jungle of Malaysia.

Teach, Learn, Share

I will soon, I hope :-)

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