Hi there, I am Selina and I'm from The Netherlands. :) I'm 26 years old and I've been in NZ for a year on a working holiday visa and have now furthered my travels to Oz on the same kind of visa. I have studied Facility Management before but unfortunately that turned out not to be what I wanted to do and what I've expected, so I thought I might as well go do some traveling. It was on my mind for a while before I decided that I was actually gonna do this. I wanted it, but I didn't dare and at some point that fear just turned around. The more I thought about it, the more exited I got and I started reading some things about New Zealand and traveling blogs and tips from people who posted online. I got more and more excited and then there was suddenly that morning that I just walked down the stairs and announced it to my parents. They where absolutely flabbergasted but they found it a great idea. They never thought I would do that and my dad almost went through the ceiling of exitement. :P He said that he had always wanted me to do what I thought would made me happy and that he have always wanted to travel himself but that he simply never did. He found it a great apportunity. My mom didn't talk much about it before I left. I think she just needed some time to get used to the idea of me leaving the house and then all at ones also to the other side of the world instead of a few blocks away. But they where both happy for me and they are curious about my travels.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

It is a cheap and fun way to travel. :)

Interests

I love cooking and good dry red wine on the side. I used to do that at home sometimes or I cooked for some of my friends. Sometimes I'm really exited making a nice cake or a few muffins, and then go mad searching on the internet for the nicest recipes. :D

I also LOVE to play music and really like to sing. Back home I played keys and did the backing vocals of an Indie-rock/pop band and I really enjoyed that. We had some songs of our own but also played covers of bands like Oasis/Beady eye, The Verve, The Rolling Stones and The Who. Every ones in a while we had a gig in a local bar or a nice festival. That adventure unfortunately ended but I've got a lot of nice memories of that awesome time and still play some piano every ones in a while. Although I think I should do that more often. I've neglected my piano a bit lately and It's way too heavy and too big to take with me on my travels. :P A piano in the room would therefore be a big plus, haha.

• singing
• festivals
• dining
• red wine
• cheese
• baking
• walking
• reading
• traveling
• music
• piano

Music, Movies, and Books

The music that I like to listen to varies a bit. I like all kinds of different genres but if I need to define my style by naming a few artists it would be:

Queens of the stone age, System of a down, Foo Fighters, Vampire Weekend, Keane, Kansas, Queen, Wolfmother, Jack Johnson, Michael Buble, Ed Sheeran, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Alicia Keys, Adele, James Morrison, The Kooks, The Verve, The Beatles, Bee Gees, Billy Joel, Joe Jackson, Evanescence, Avenged Sevenfold, Amos Lee and Dan Mangan :D

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Travel NZ with a van and see the amazingly jaw dropping nature. :D Washing myself in a river everyday and not seeing a hot shower for months to the point where I had to get used to hot showers again afterwords :P, making my cereal with instant milk, eating one dollar bread and sweaty cheese. Catching mussels and eat them at 2am in the morning cause it took that long to clean them. Was so worth it though.. Wooow.. :D Walking the 4day Milford Sound track and taking pictures that still make my heart beat faster and fill my heart with excitement and joy when I look at them. Losing my flip flop and one piece of cutlery while trying to catch mussels when it's becoming high tide (seeing the box drift away too.. Had to dive after my box of mussels). Doing the dishes in the river and at lakes. Having breakfast in the middle of a group of chickens trying to steal our food :P Baking an egg in front of the Mac Donald's on their parking space. Walking the rest of Milford sound like a grandma with a tree branch from day 3 on out, cause I didn't have the proper shoes and my joints were shattered. Got many comments from my travel buddy. He called me grandma, the bastard :P He was kind enough to treat me like a grandma though. So he made up for that. ;)

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Spain, Turkey

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Netherlands, New Zealand