CURRENT MISSION

Experiential learning and adventuring!

ABOUT ME

I'm enthusiastic and colorful, pretty energetic but happy to relax too. I love showing people around the places I've lived, and I love meeting people who feel the same about the places they live. I try to travel light, but I pick things up along my way and sometimes have to re-arrange, leaving other things behind when I go, so if you're into tee-shirt swapping or a new pair of size 9 (European size 40-41) shoes that don't fit in my bag any more, awesome. I really enjoy local markets and public parks, cool architecture, and local (but not red meat, sorry) cuisine. I'm always down for drinks and listening/dancing to live music!

PHILOSOPHY

I just read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and really agree with this statement from that book: "The place to improve the world is first in one's own head and heart and hands, and then work outward from there."

I think when we try ourselves to be positive, we help the whole world become positive.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm happy to help in the kitchen or garden. My friends and I had a laughter club in college, so I can lead a session of laughs, too! (It's great to relieve stress and have a positive outlook)

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I don't have any formal experience in couch surfing, though my housemates and I hosted a few touring bands at our place during college, and I've crashed with near-strangers during travels before. I did an exchange to another university in the U.S.A. my sophomore year and met a bunch of international students (friends!) who use Couch Suring.

Interests

When I'm not traveling, I love to grow a vegetable and flower garden, sew, play piano, and bike all around the town and countryside with my friends. Favorite summer activities include bonfires, swimming in lakes, rivers, and oceans, listening to live music in parks around town, grilling (vegetables and tofu for me.) I help tutor an ESL (English-as-a-second-language) class for adults at a local library and would like to someday teach English abroad full-time. I also worked as a server/waitress during my final year of college and really enjoyed talking with visitors and regulars at work. Favorite cold-weather activities include drinking tea, baking, snowshoeing, saunaing, and bonfires again. My dream job is to operate an organic flower farm and keep bees, but I'd be happy working at a library, science museum, or as a school teacher (especially to travel during vacations!)

• animals
• arts
• books
• architecture
• dancing
• baking
• yoga
• working out
• drinking
• clubbing
• gardening
• clothing
• flowers
• traveling
• socializing
• music
• live music
• piano
• cycling
• surfing
• skydiving
• snowshoeing
• swimming
• teaching
• science
• parks
• lakes
• rivers
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

I've recently read and loved Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the Alchemist, Dune, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I'm working on Childhood, Boyhood, Youth by Tolstoy now.

I LOVE live music! Even if it's music I'd never listen to through headphones, if it's live, I nearly always love it. My favorite musicians to listen to whenever are: Guster, Bob Dylan, Cat Power, and Josh Ritter, though I really do love many many more.

My favorite movies are usually quirky, sometimes classic, and tend to have a good soundtrack/score. They include: The Science of Sleep "But this was not Duke Ellington- this was DUCK Ellington!", works by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, and Nausicaa in particular), Wes Anderson's films (so strange and wonderful, and amazing scenery), I enjoy a chick-flick now and then, as well as a quality block-buster or action movie, too, hehe.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

1) My brother and I went skydiving together in 2011. Jumping out of a plane, seeing the country we grew up in and falling through a cloud... I would love to go again!
2) I love getting up early (or staying up all night) to watch sunrises. My favorites have been at the South Carolina coast, the southern coast of Portugal, and in the mountains of Montana.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can lead laughter yoga, hahaha! I'm pretty handy with a sewing machine and have been known to teach my friends how to mend their clothes or make sock animals. I really want to learn the art of keeping an apiary.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States