CURRENT MISSION

To be, fully.

ABOUT ME

Having moved around a lot and lived in a few different places while growing up, and then spending 3 of my university years overseas, I became slightly addicted to traveling. I love everything to do with traveling: meeting people, practising my languages, discovering new places and cultures and the new perspective it gives me on my home place. I used to find it frustrating that it was so difficlut to meet local people while I was traveling. CS has really helped with that.

PHILOSOPHY

Hard to define. I feel at my fullest when I'm taking steps toward becoming more integrated and sincerely pushing against my blockages. Dance. Dance as much as possible, in every way possible. Listen. Listen to the body, nature, the past, the future, old people, children. Lose yourself, in a book, a forest, a shoulder, under water, on a dancefloor and on the road of course!! BE, show up, fully.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I have been an active CS member in groups in Ireland, Colombia and Bolivia. I use the network regularly when travelling and have met great people here in Bolivia through the site.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

The above, plus: I've CS'ed with people in Ireland, India, Venezuela, Colombia and Central America on previous adventures. I've been invited in to people's homes while travelling and living abroad on several occasions -both through CS and independently- and always feel privileged to have had the opportunity to experiance a country by getting to know it's people.

Interests

History & politics; personal development; meditation and yoga; sustainable development; languages/translation; dancing-viva la salsa!; food-cooking- FOOD; cycling; meeting new people: cultural exchange; travelling.

• books
• dancing
• salsa dancing
• dining
• cooking
• yoga
• meditation
• politics
• traveling
• socializing
• blogging
• cycling
• wrestling
• rock climbing
• history
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

The Reader, City of God, Slumdog Millionaire, Te doy mis ojos, This is England, In the name of the father, Indigenes, Amores Perros, Pan's labyrinth, Old Boy, Michael Collins, Motorcycle Diaries, Adam & Paul, A Streetcar named desire. Kubrick, Almodovar

Musica:
Lots of different Latin -Colombian especially- rhythms while here in Latin America: salsa, vallenato, cumbia, merengue, champeta, ritmos caribeños, regaton (sometimes) Groups like Sidestepper, ChocQuibtown and Bomba Estero -mixes of traditional rythms with electronic, rock and rap etc.
Colombian Carranga music - love the way it's a language for the campesinos.
Bolivian 'autoctono' music and modern adaptations. Kjarkas, Kalamarka

Otherwise-Huge fan of Irish folk legend Christy Moore. Also, the Irish folk tradition, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, George Brassens, Francis Gabrel. Manu Chao, Andres Calamaro, Groove Collective , Dave Mathews Band, Air, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Arcade Fire, Finlay Quaye, St. Germain, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Ojos de Brujo, The Stunning, Rory Gallagher, Vincent Delerm.

Books - All sorts. Lots of history and politics, non-fiction.
Recently-Mario Vargas Llosa, John Steinbeck, Alice Walker, García Marquez, Wendell Berry, Fernando Vallejo, Eduardo Galeano, Osho, Naomi Kleinm, Noam Chomsky, Miguel Angel Asturias
Some favourites- John Mc Gahern, John O'Donohue, Tahar Ben Jaloun, Camus

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Three actually:
I cycled the Camino de Santiago de Compostella pilgrimmage from The French Basque country, across the Pyrenees and Northern Spain (850 km) to Santiago in Galicia in five days using a really heavy, cheap, second-hand mountain bike I'd bought a few weeks before in France.
Cycled around Ireland in November 2010 visiting and blogging about community gardens and community food initiatives. Blog: http://bit.ly/1EgGS6D
Completed a Mountain bike race in Bolivia -starting at 1200metres in the tropics and climbing to 4600metres in the high Andes. Video: http://bit.ly/1CPUWQf
In all of these cycles was on the verge of giving up on several occasions. I soon realised how much of cycling is a mental battle with yourself.

Teach, Learn, Share

I could help people out with French , Spanish or English, could do some Irish history, some Italian cooking, some salsa dancing and some wicked thumb wrestling techniques :)

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Germany, Honduras, Hungary, India, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, Poland, Slovakia, Thailand, United States, Venezuela

Countries I’ve Lived In

Bolivia, Colombia, France, Guatemala, Ireland, Italy, Spain

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