CURRENT MISSION

I'm exploring the world via single origin coffee, out of which one of the world's strangest but most satisfying collection hobbies developed. I want to share this passion with whoever might get it: armchair-travelers and couchsurfers, coffee geeks and collecting freaks. My current mission is to improve my website (www.ticp.coffee) about it, including writing blog entries. Write, write, write.

PHILOSOPHY

"Philosophy" is putting it a bit strongly. Find something that has the capacity to intrigue and inspire you. Try to share it with other people.
Educate yourself, find out about the world: read about where you came from, and go traveling to all the other places, then enjoy the experience of your preconceived notions about those places and people crumble or explode!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We used to host more visitors when my wife and I were students in Vienna. It's a bit trickier now, but we can make it work, just drop me a line.
I would also love to have more visitors just drop by for a cup a nice coffee.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We've hosted and surfed a handful of times, and each has been memorable: shared laughs, exchanged ideas, excellent meals!

Interests

Most of my listed interests are pretty obvious and we'll leave them at that.

Perhaps a word to earth science: we live on a vastly fascinating speck of rock, and humankind has only just arrived on the scene a nanosecond ago, in the greater scheme of geological things. Nevertheless, we've figured out an incredible amount about how this place works. The interlocking processes and cycles of its rocky bits (molten and solid), its watery bits (all three phases), its air and its life is just breathtaking (and breathgiving).

Just try to imagine a time-lapse bird's eye view of unfolding earth history: with glaciers and ice sheets expanding and contracting, sea levels falling and rising in concert, ecosystem successions keeping pace with it: rainforests reverting to savanah to arid scrubland and all the way back again, continents eerily drifting across the surface, plowing into each other, rifting apart. It's mind-boggling and truly awesome (a much misused word, that last one, but fully fitting for earth science and history).

• literature
• coffee
• traveling
• music
• earth science

Music, Movies, and Books

I've always been a bit of a bookworm.
Some favourite authors: Wilma Stockenström, Etienne van Heerden, Arno Geiger, Charles Portis, Sarah Perry, Haruki Murakami, Olga Tokarczuk.

Broad music tastes, but my heart beats loudest for blues, jazz and heavy metal.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I survived the Anzop tunnel (the one with the slight moisture problem) on the road from Dushanbe to Aini.

Later: pitching a tent on the dead ice forefield of a glacier in the upper Zarafshan valley.

Teach, Learn, Share

Teaching, learning and sharing is good, I agree. But who can say in advance what we can learn from one another?
I can teach you all about collecting spent coffee grounds.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Meals, a walk-about, our time.

Countries I’ve Visited

Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Tajikistan

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, Canada, South Africa, United Kingdom

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