CURRENT MISSION

Learning to Live

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I have been involved in couchsurfing since 2008, mostly by hosting, organizing dinners and going to meetups. Most people that I have met are open-minded, generous and passionate about life.

Couchsurfing is one of the few things where people selflessly offer help, hospitality and friendship to complete strangers and this is what I like most about it.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have hosted quite a number of people in the last 2 years, surfed once, organized and attended a few dinner parties. Most of my experience involves food :)

Some particularly memorable experiences I had so far:
-Made enchilada's together from scratch on my kitchen table (used a wine bottle as a roller, and there was flour all over my place -but it was so worth it!)
-Cycled through the rain in Amsterdam together, with my chain falling off every 600 meters or so. I got quite proficient in fixing it.
-Playing Guitar Hero until 3 am with my guests.
-Long discussions about why the French like to strike
-In Berlin, a CS'er just spontaneously invited us for a nice home-cooked dinner
-Having great Vietnamese food cooked by one of my guests
-Breakfast in the park together
-Yummy guacamole made by a guest
-Dinner party at Marco's (a fellow CS host in Amsterdam) where I cooked and he provided the table for 12
-Dinner party at Marjolein (another fellow CS host in Amsterdam) where she cooked a great Dutch dish
-Randomly met up with Ursula, Michel and Mina in Copenhagen, we explored the city together and had a really nice tim

Interests

Progressive Rock/Metal, Travel, Meeting new people, cooking, computers

• dining
• cooking
• breakfast
• wine
• partying
• traveling
• guitar
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Mostly progressive rock/metal. I am quite passionate about it, and I really like going to concerts (for which Amsterdam is a great place to be, BTW). Some of my favorite bands/acts include Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, Symphony X, Transatlantic, Spock's Beard, Neal Morse, Pink Floyd, Blackfield, Pure Reason Revolution. I won't subject you to all of this when I host you -but I will try! - and I do have plenty of mainstream stuff that I listen to occasionally.

TV: Weeds, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Arrested Development to name a few.

Movies: too many to list, not even gonna try

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

-Snorkeled with manatees in Florida
-Watched Pink Floyd's Pulse DVD on a big screen with giant speakers after a night dive on the beach of a tropical island off the coast of Malaysia

Teach, Learn, Share

Amsterdam hosts get a lot of requests, and I am no exception. People ask me how a good request looks like, and its hard to name hard criteria -I tend to go for my gut feeling, I have hosted people with no references and declined some with lots of them. In general, the requests I like are the ones that are personal where you feel a genuine click (and that doesn't mean it has to be long)

A few common sense pointers (covered in numerous places throughout this site but I find them worth pointing out here):

1. Fill out your profile. Its ok to not have any references, but people like to get an idea of who wants to stay with them. Filling out a profile is the least you can do (in my opinion).

2. In your request, tell something (anything, really) about yourself. No need for a life story or anything, just something that shows that you are not just on this site for free lodging. Don't use the "I don't have money" argument.

3. If for whatever reason you cannot make it, please contact the host. I know it sounds silly, but there is a reason for putting it here. We all know that travel plans can change at the last moment, and generally people don't take it too personally when you decide to surf with someone else (at least I don't).

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Netherlands, Singapore, United States

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