CURRENT MISSION

To find the best soup dumplings in the world, and to eat them all. Same goes for dim sum.

ABOUT US

We're a queer couple living and working in Edinburgh - we originally met at uni in Canada and Lili moved to Edinburgh in September 2015 to do a Masters degree. A year later, Graye flew over to join me :)

We're both pretty busy and work long hours, and enjoy unwinding at home with a silly TV show, a good book, or a board game - and usually either a cup of tea or a glass of wine. The third member of our wee family is our very fluffy and not very clever cat Luna, whose silly antics are an endless source of entertainment.

Lili works as a support worker in a homeless drop-in service and is passionate about mental health, accessibility, sex ed, and dumplings. Graye works as a front-of-house admin extraordinaire in a busy investment firm and loves talking about politics, sci fi and fantasy (and the difference between them), and roller derby. We both love cooking and sharing meals with friends and have lots of experience working in community organisations, doing active listening, and working on liberation issues.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We've hosted a few people before (formally on CS and informally through friends-of-friends), and Li has couchsurfed once. We've loved those experiences and are keen to carry on!

We're also currently going through the training & lengthy verification/approval process to become hosts for Nightstop, a service that helps homeless young people find somewhere to stay for up to two weeks when they're in crisis.

Interests

We both love reading, cooking and writing - we're constantly trying out new recipes and refining our favourite ones, and we love sharing meals with friends.

Lili is an aspiring polyglot - she speaks English and French fluently, speak intermediate Mandarin (and improving!) and conversational Russian. She is also an avid craftsperson and loves knitting, embroidering, and sewing.

Graye is currently involved in the local roller derby scene and training to get on a team. She has also enjoyed playing Dungeons & Dragons with a couple of friends lately and is always excited to level up her character. She will also happily debate the difference between fantasy and sci fi and chat endlessly about Star Wars, space, and time travel.

Both of us are super into community organising, anti-oppressive, feminist, queer and trans, anti-racist, and anti-ableist politics, and love talking about those things with people. Also science!

PHILOSOPHY
Lili: Give more than you take and things will always end up balancing themselves out.
Graye: Do no harm, but take no shit.

• books
• cooking
• recipes
• politics
• knitting
• languages
• psychology
• science
• social work
• mental health

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Lots and lots! We're not particularly picky, though neither of us are very fond of rap.

Movies: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy (and other MCU films in general), Arrival, Odette Toulemonde, Les uns et les autres, just so many films really.

Books: SO MANY. We can't possibly list them all, though we'll add some progressively. We both love Tamora Pierce, Neal Stephenson, Lewis Caroll, Harry Potter, the Kushiel and Namaah series, Becky Chambers, and more.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

- In February, we both went skiing in the Dolomites and managed to get stranded on the wrong side of the mountain from where we were staying. Luckily, we caught the last chair lift back across the mountain. We're not sure how we would have gotten back otherwise!

- We moved our cat over from Canada earlier this year, which involved driving from Montreal to Toronto, flying from Toronto to London, and then taking the train up to Edinburgh. It was nearly 24h of travel in total, all with an unhappy cat.

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach: Knitting, cooking, editing, sewing, water-colours, database searching, pot-scouring, roller-skating, embroidery, making healthy meals on a budget, languages, writing essay outlines, mental health support, anti-uppression 101 and more, Petting Kittens 101 and more!

Learn: Recipes, more about other cultures and other people's experiences, lace patterns for knitting, computer programming, stuff about space, etc.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Lots of recipes, funny stories about various things, debates about a whole range of issues, lots more.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, India, Jordan, Mexico, Mongolia, Scotland, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, France, Russian Federation, Scotland