CURRENT MISSION

Finding a bunch of great people to prove myself that the world is not as bad as the TV-news say it is

ABOUT ME

The last years I spent studying and moving around in Germany and Scandinavia, learning languages, meeting lots of great people and gaining lots of knowledge. I worked at the theater as a social media manager and did theater research in Iceland and Norway for my studies.
Now it seems like I am getting a little grown up and calm down even though I still travel and learn crazy languages that make me throw dictionaries around out of anger every once in a while. I am working on my PhD in Scandinavian studies and have to learn Russian for the programme I am in.
I live together with my husband Michael (who also has a couchsurfing profile but became too lazy to do anything with it) and we have a two-room-apartment which is full of stuff: Michael has three bikes and loads of tools for all kinds of work and I have three sewing machines and tons of books.
I think I am quite easy-going and could laugh about possibly everything. I'm afraid of wasting time and always keen on using time meaningfully. (By meaningfully I don't mean that I have to be up doing things all the time. But I try to fill every day with somethings special: Drinking a cup of interesting tea I never had before, doing/learning something new, meeting someone I haven't had contact to for a long time, go to a long forgotten place, make people smile...
I laughed so hard that I peed my pants (more than once. That should show that I am a person who is easily entertained and who has quite a wide sense of humor. I can also be very goofy and clumsy)
I wish I could do more to make the world a better place and I try to work on that one step at a time; three years ago I started being a vegetarian and I love this way of living: it gives you a whole new perspective on food.
I also started a sewing my own clothes because I am sick of buying from stores where children from Bangladesh have made their products. Since it is almost impossible to be totally sure you have fair traded, organic etc. clothes I decided to start doing it myself. I also started a little business with it and sell clothes for babies and grown-ups: dawanda.com/shop/gronnskog
The next step is importing the fabric myself to make sure it is produced in a human way. I am working on this onw, slowly progressing...

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Some years ago I started on couchsurfing and I had an amazing trip hitch-hiking and couchsurfing through the Netherlands. What an amazing experience! Since today I have surfed quite some couches in Germany, Austria, Poland, Norway and Iceland. I also hosted some people but not that many, hopefully that'll change some day.

Interests

I wish I could spend more time with these things:
literature, WRITING!, my guinea-pigs, doing sports like handball, golf, nordic-walking or yoga or any other interesting sport, playing guitar, juggling, drinking tea, knitting, God and religious studies, watching plays in the theater, learning and speaking languages, TRAVELING!, talking to interesting people, lying in a hammock, wachting sunrises and sunsets, being on a boat, being in the nature, learning how to sew, watching plants grow, walking through streets I have never walked before, baking (bread! and cakes and cookies and all kinds of stuff) and learning how to cook, dreaming about treehouses, hitch-hiking, slack-lining, Lindy Hop, board games,......

• writing
• books
• literature
• theater
• dining
• cooking
• baking
• vegetarian
• yoga
• walking
• drinking
• boating
• shopping
• clothing
• news
• board games
• tv
• traveling
• juggling
• knitting
• guitar
• hiking
• sports
• handball
• golf
• business
• communications
• languages
• hitchhiking

Music, Movies, and Books

I usually have to knit while watching movies. Some of my very favorite movies are: Harold and Maude, The Notebook, La vita e bella, Fight Club, Stranger Than Fiction, Little Miss Sunshine, Annie Hall, Amelie, Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Grand Budapest Hotel.

There's no bad moment with the right music in your ear. Bands I enjoy are mostly rock or indie-bands like Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Muse, Mando Diao, Brand New, Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson, Franz Ferdinand, Young Rebel Set, Kakkmaddafakka, Data Roock but I also like to listen to classical music a lot. I have absolutly no ear for music, I just listen and enjoy.

What can I say about books? Books are as necessary as breathing and to list all these great books I was able to get my eyes on is impossible. Some authors I love are Salman Rushdie, Yann Martel, Kafka, Borchert, Shakespeare, Jonathan Safran Foer, Bukowski, Calvino, Frisch, Austen, Faulkner, Ibsen, Gogol, Pratchett, Gustafsson, Andri Snaer Magnason, Steinunn Sigurdardottir, Lars Saabye Christensen, Jose Saramago, Hallgrimur Helgason, Svava Jakosbdottir, and yes the list goes on and on. (Sometimes my heart aches when I stand in front of a big pile of books and have to realize that I probably won't be able to read all of them in this life time.)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

- hitch-hiking through the Westfjords of Iceland (cold, windy, one car every 20 minutes)
- spending some time on a boat travelling around the San Juan Islands, WA, USA
- living in Norway for almost one year
- most amazing feeling: true happiness.

Teach, Learn, Share

teach: how to juggle with 3 balls.
learn: how to juggle with 4 balls. (and anything else that comes my way.)

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Norway, United States