I am smiley, humorous, relaxed
i'm a visual artist, so when traveling I'm often interested in getting to know the cultural scene, underground music, bookshops..
but sometimes also i just walk & bike around the city aimlessly
I like to meet people and do stuff together, never as a mission, rather whenever it comes naturally. I am thus equally happy finding my own way around when visiting and minding my own business when hosting :)
i'm interested in gardening (i love collecting & sharing old original non-gmo seeds) & i love garden design and dyi in the garden or terrace.
i love watching movies & i have a very good film collection (that i love sharing) with rare movies, experimental stuff, shorts & also just fun movies to wach.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I have only couch-surfed through the website once, but I have stayed at friends & friends' friends in almost all my travels. And I have hosted friends (of course!) and friends of friends and work colleagues tens of times.

I think traveling is a savior. It's a chance to regain one's balance (whether physically, mentally, emotionally, socially or other). I find that the traveling experience is so much better when it's more in touch with the place's culture, people and nature. I thus, as a traveler, prefer when in Cities being hosted in people's homes, and when in nature, to be camping.

As a host, I like to open up my house to people to live in it for a little while if they want and if they'd use it sensibly. It is really just that. There could be good conversation or good chemistry or fun activities we do together or not. In essence, it's simply that I have this place that has an extra room, if someone needs it & would treat it well, they're welcome to.

Besides this being my personal preference, I have some ideological problems with mass tourism & its players, and I would avoid using these facilities whenever I can.

Interests

What more :) ?

• arts
• books
• design
• fashion
• photography
• cooking
• walking
• clubbing
• gardening
• movies
• traveling
• music
• environmental studies
• nature
• bars
• biking
• cities
• dyi
• flee markets

Music, Movies, and Books

These change... the past year I've been into Alberto Manguel, Ali Smith..
With movies I can never ever have favorites, they're too many! I'm too immersed :)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

i lose the details of the moment, forget them, but i take a long "the owe", challenge & inspiration it gave me .. (sorry i find these questions to hard to answer)

Teach, Learn, Share

teach, learn.. that's hard to tell, it depends on with whom i'd be doing that.

as for "share", well, there are some concrete stuff, related to my interest (pls. see above), or related to my skills, as a professional photographer, artist & strongly involved in visual culture, design, city fabric etc. Or I can share seeds from my collection.
Also non-concrete stuff, I can possibly share artwork & film recommendations..

What I Can Share with Hosts

Well, there are the practical things mentioned above. But also it depends on who the person is and how the relationship develops.
I do have quite some good amount of skills to share, thus one can plan for a very pragmatic object or service or skill to share. But then so far in my experience, we always ended up very happily sharing totally different things :)

Please note that I am generally more on the subtle scale of sharing and communicating. I consider myself generous and I love giving stuff & receiving stuff, but I like it to come slowly, naturally and without much anticipation or celebration for the process of giving or receiving :)

Countries I’ve Visited

Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mali, Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Egypt, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland