Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Host and travel whenever I can! Give tips when I can't.

Travelers, if you are getting worried about finding a couch, have a look at the emergency group (you can post 3 days in advance: http://www.couchsurfing.org/group.html?gid=12652); or the not emergency couch request (before the 3 last days: http://www.couchsurfing.org/group.html?gid=35889). They can be really helpful (have been for me in other cities)

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've been hosted by the best people in Berlin and in America, and have sometimes been amazed by my hosts'generosity. At times, I couldn't imagine a way to thank my hosts properly - offer a bottle of wine? He had opened many of his at the party he had organized for us couchsurfers... - so I guess the best thing to do is to try and offer the same thing to other couchsurfers in my turn.

Oh, and I'm now using couchsurfing for a ton of other things: finding flatmates when moving abroad, finding people who want to hike/to go to a concert when I'm traveling, finding a tandem to speak a foreign language with me... Couchsurfing has made me meet a ton of cool people, independently of hosting/being hosted, and has enabled me to do a ton of things I couldn't have done otherwise.

Interests

I love reading above all, novels and poetry.

I love to travel a lot, and to stay a little while in a city, to get to see more than the touristic views, and to meet the people that will make me feel I have discovered something there.

Live music! Rock, electro, good hip hop too, tiny bit of musique française, but I'm curious of other styles (... some of them). Classical's good too, even though I don't know the first thing about it.

Hiking, in nature if possible, but I don't mind just walking randomly in a city either.

Politics. I don't have a great fixed system in my head, and I still haven't figured out how to save humanity and the planet (sorry), but I still like to talk about it.

• poetry
• concerts
• wine
• walking
• partying
• politics
• reading
• traveling
• music
• live music
• hiking
• languages
• tourism

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Les Enfants du Paradis; Brazil; Life of Brian and other Python movies or shows; J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster; Darjeeling limited and a other Wes Anderson movies; It's a wonderful life; Blue Gate Crossing; Biutiful; The Taste of Tea; The Big Lebowski, A Serious Man; Princess Mononoke and other Miyazaki movies...

Music: Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Brel, Brassens (les poètes), Black Keys, Beirut, Hanni el Khatib, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, Chinese man, Gorillaz, Bob Marley, Nick Drake, Lou Reed and VU, Vampire Weekend, Phoenix, Stupeflip, Nicolas Jaar, Ellen Allien, Shawn Lee, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Gilerto Gil!, Seu Jorge, Cold War Kids, Bill Withers, Explosions in the sky lately ...

Books: Belle du seigneur; Mrs Dalloway; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme; Proust; Anna Karénine; The Karamazov Brothers; Jane Eyre; The Catcher in the Rye... too many things here. As for poetry: Alcools, by Guillaume Apollinaire, is probably the one book I'd take on a desert island; Rimbaud; Baudelaire; Cohen's Book of Mercy...

Oh, and comics. Calvin & Hobbes, Boulet (http://english.bouletcorp.com/), Bastien Vives (http://bastienvives.blogspot.com/)...

Couldn't list all I love here. Come and we'll talk.

Teach, Learn, Share

I want to learn how to say cornichon in as many languages as possible. I already have one.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Netherlands, Philippines, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Germany, United States

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