CURRENT MISSION

To play lots of music and enjoy life.

ABOUT ME

In the winter, me and John live in a Swedish ski resort playing after-ski music (alternative and acoustic after-ski!), and in the summer we stay in my family's summer house outside Siljansnäs. We are full-time musicians, so we spend a lot of time rehearsing, contacting venues, trying to get computers to work, practising some more, carrying equipment about, and playing gigs. It's all quite busy. There's not that much happening jam session-wise etc around here though, so we'd be really happy with some musicians visiting us!

I recently graduated as a music therapist from the Ingesund music college in Arvika.

Apart from playing music we love skiing (mainly cross-country) and walking and swimming and cooking and watching films.

PHILOSOPHY

John sometimes claims that what doesn't kill you will make you stronger.

I believe that nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something. There's always something you can do to make the world a better place. I'm a vegan, and I believe in trying to cause as little suffering to other creatures as possible.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We learnt about couch surfing from some friends in a very remote community on the west coast of Scotland. It seemed like a good idea to get to meet new people.

I have participated in a lot of activities where you meet people from all over the world in the past, e.g. I've been to youth camps in Europe, I've been a foreign student at three universities in the UK, and I've been to many music courses, always with a mix of nationalities represented, in Sweden, Scotland and the US, and I really feel that all the people from different countries I have met in my life has broadened my mind and made my life richer. Participating in the CS project is a continuation of this.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We have been doing a lot of couch surfing in the past, although not through this website. We have often relied on friends to give us some floor space to sleep on, and we also often have friends staying, both in the ski-resort in the winter and in the summer house in the summer. One new year we had 4 visitors (Swedish, Polish, and Greek) in our tiny ski-resort cabin, and on new years eve we had a bonfire outside that we danced around singing and playing kazoos and shaky eggs, drinking champagne (or something white and bubbly that looked like champagne!), and having a party with the neighbours. Then we went indoors and made snowboarding gingerbread men and women!

Interests

Music, and more music. We listen to all kinds of music, like Albert Lee, The Cure, Bob Wills, The Pixies, Dave Matthews, Dolly Parton, Aubrey Haynie, Dervish, Gillian Welch, The Hotclub of Cowtown, some Swedish traditional stuff, like Sälta, Swåp and Pers-Hans, The Dixie Chicks, Julie Fowlis, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart, Dinosaur Jr, Hank Williams, Thin Lizzy, Taylor Swift, The Wedding Present.... and oh dear, the list goes on and on.... John plays the guitar and sings, and I play the fiddle and sing. We both try and write songs, and we've just bought a mandolin that we're trying to learn to play, too. Mostly we're into bluegrass, country, American old-time music, Scottish, Irish, Cape Breton, and Swedish traditional music.

We also like to go skiing, mostly cross-country but also downhill and snowboarding (I'm just learning and I love it!). We go for walks and we go swimming in the lake next to our summer house. There's not that much more to do out here in the middle of nowhere, actually..... When we're in Scotland, though, we see lots of friends, go out for meals, go to the cinema, go to yoga and other keep-fit classes, go out to pubs to listen to music, and we go to jam sessions to play. I also like shopping in charity second hand shops.

• singing
• dancing
• cooking
• vegan
• yoga
• walking
• partying
• drinking
• pub crawls
• shopping
• movies
• socializing
• music
• guitar
• surfing
• skiing
• snowboarding
• swimming

Music, Movies, and Books

I love films like Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, Lost in Translation, Crash, Closer, The Husband of the Hairdresser, and Out of Africa. John sometimes likes horror films, like The Exorcism of Emily Rose. We both love Father Ted and Chewing the Fat.

I'm reading Light on Snow by Anita Shreve just now, and I'm really enjoying it. I recently read the book Out of Africa, and I though that was amazing. I read all the time, usually several books at the same time (I keep one book in each room of the house). John has fits of reading. The last time it happened I saw him with the Woody Guthrie biography Bound for Glory (which I totally loved, too).

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Sofie: Swimming in the lake as the sun sets on a warm July evening.
John: Trekking the jungles of Kenya.

Teach, Learn, Share

Well, me and John could teach you some Scottish or Swedish tunes, and maybe a song and some dancing (we've taught Swedish dancing, Scottish ceilidh dancing and Scottish step dancing in the past). We would love to learn some music and dancing in return!
Oh, and we could also teach you how to play the cow horn!

What I Can Share with Hosts

Music and vegan cooking!

Countries I’ve Visited

Belarus, Belize, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Sweden, United Kingdom, United States

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