Right now; road tripping around the Balkans; Macedonia/ Kosovo/ Albania

ABOUT ME

My two loves in life are music and travel. Which is why I became a documentary filmmaker, so that I could always meet new people, discover new places, from closed Arctic Siberian mining cities to slave colonies in the Sahara, find exciting music and tell stories about what I find both on screen and in the classroom as a teacher.

I live on a canal boat in London, and love the self-sufficient lifestyle, going to look for water, chopping wood for heat, and changing home every couple of weeks, little / no electricity ... the perfect antidote to stressful London chaos!!

I also dance samba in carnivals and my aim is to dance in the Rio Sambodomr next year!!

PHILOSOPHY

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage - Anais Nin

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed - Mahatma Gandhi

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I love surfing and meeting people from the couchsurfing communities around the world, it has completely changed my way of travelling, and makes me feel like I have friends all over the world. I host when I can, but mainly I surf as I'm hardly ever home!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

One of the best inventions of the past century, connecting the whole world allowing us to be always surrounded by friends, and not strangers :)

Interests

Filmmaking, photography, music (electronic, hip hop / soul / funky and jazz most of all)

• photography
• documentaries
• film making
• dancing
• running
• boating
• traveling
• socializing
• music
• jazz
• camping
• surfing
• swimming
• teaching
• tourism
• hitchhiking
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies :
This one always changes, depending on my mood! But some of the films that most influenced me are :
The Cranes are Flying (Kalamatozov), Bombay Beach (Alma Har'el), Pierrot le Fou (Godard), La Strada (Fellini), Chronicles of a Summer (Jean Rouche), and a big fan of Herzog and Khalil Joseph

Music :
Anything with swing, rhythm, drums, and can start off a dance - that's the music I like. I dance samba (have performed in carnivals too!).

Books :
Master & Margherita (Bulgakov), Hopscotch (Cortazar), anything by Kapuscinski, Female Eunuch (Greer), Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Kundera), Crime & Punishment (Dostoevsky)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Travelling around Central America and Mexico on a motorbike, La Burra Poderosa (Poweful Donkey) ... Working with women and children in Rocinha, a Rio Favela ... Dancing with the locals in the middle of the street at a friend's wedding in Bamako suburbs, Mali ... Camping and making lasting connections with Roma gypsy musicians, learning their songs and dances... Visiting tiny, pristine coves and pristine beaches with a little boat in the beautiful Balearic islands... Swimming naked underneath a huge waterfall with no one else around in Chiapas, Mexico... performing in Notting Hill Carnival... Running out of money and hitchhiking the Transiberian route from Ekaterinburg to Hong Kong!!

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, China, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Gambia, Guatemala, Iran, Kosovo, Latvia, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Italy, Mexico, Russian Federation, Spain, United Kingdom