Hi I am Steve from Wales, I love singing with a passion have voice will travel has always been the motto. Singing has brought me to staying with host families in Bergamo, Florence, Paris, Strasbourg, Oslo, Bergen, Salzburg, Geneva, LA Chaux de Fonds, St Gallen, Switzerland.

I have lived in Copenhagen eating communally on the same corridor with 12 nationalities making such good friends with Passionate vocal Italians work hard play hard admirable Polish people and strikingly string character Russians.

Also enjoyed couchsurfing in Lund with students all singing together sharing communally.

I studied MSC in tourism where I bucked the Havard doorstopper MBA and airport city metropolis shiny shop trend and wrote about sustainable cultural local small is beautiful responsible tourism and systems theory of Fritjoff Capra the Tao of physics and the web of life.

I sang a Neapolitan love song at the Green party conference ceilidh circle dance in Liverpool which is such a friendly city with a fine civic tradition.

Last year I also had positive couchsurfing experience after the anarchist book fare in Bradford where good people who didnt know me before hosted me shared with me lots of authentic curries (Bradford is the Curry capital of Britain and we sang Bob Dylan together when the host got his guitar out. I also remember sharing the singing of Bob Dylan songs with a harmonica player from the States I shared a hostel with in Berlin.

I sing with Llandaff Cathedral Choral Society all the greats like Verdi Requiem which was an ambition to sing last November Handels Messiah four times my favourite and last week Bach passion Haydyn Creation Easter. Singing Janacek in Czech was most fun. In University Choir we sang Carmina Burana on Classic FM Radio with the Huddersfield Choral Society and I remember they asked me to show them the best pubs for beer in Leicester. I can remember the best pub is the Swan and Rushes it used to be an Irish Pub then became a real ale quiz pub old fashioned very high IQ . Our team would win the quiz night as long as Pink Floyd Dark Side of the moon Album was playing then I could take my time and be inspired. The Swan and Rushes is an example of how to adapt in life. With so many shops selling cut price alcohol now it rather thn going out of business became a cooperative owned by its local customers like lecturers and nurses started having top quality German beer lists meat plates cheese plates and then years later when i revisited a real Asian Curry Chef making the best Tarka Dhall!

I once went to live on an authentic friendly community Greek island Called Samos which with Ikaria is renowned for having so many people living a hundred years because of the fresh mediteranean diet. I came back clearer and healthily more holistic.. in Samos with my French friend marc who loves into the wild and Walden life in the woods we went into the the pine forrest mountains everyday picking fresh sage rosemary and other herbs to make fresh teas and add to our pastas and salads. We also picked hundreds of fresh oranges grapefruits tangerines lemons and limes growing in abandance both where we lived and all along our coastal and mountain walks every day. In the European Winter I reccommend the healthy Samos lifestyle as it puts you closer to nature and the earth we walked fifteeen twenty miles a day to the nearest university town for wi fi and fresh cheese which was our only luxury.
I am told I am a friendly passionate intellectual and spiritual free spirit. I love to travel and meet interesting people. When i went to fuerteventura I walked fifteen 20 kilometeres a day practiced yoga meditation in sea under starlit sky and sandunes feeling spiritually free and in the evenings played table tennis til the early hours if the morning and made friends with good people from Latvia Lithuania and Albania all so friendly and positive.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

TO make friends share cultures and learn more about the world from one another be inspired be stronger as a result be bold be original be different and care for one another. To be refreshed and revitalised seeing how beautiful Wales is through the eyes of travellers from abroad learning through hospitality from the characters.

Interests

c x ivyn iClassical music, live folk and world music, real ales Belgian and German beers, yoga meditation groups and spirituality. Long walks through mounains and along the Welsh coastal path. Luckily Wales is half national park mountains and all coastal footpath. We are lucky in the UK to never be more than two hours drive from the seaside and despite the unreliable weather it really is beautiful.
Campaigning journalism for NGO like Oxfam Greenpeace
etc. I love to play table tennis. I love subtitled world cinema with good character dialogue romance comedy documents rise documentaries
anything with more depth than action movies.

• books
• literature
• singing
• folklore
• documentaries
• dancing
• cheese
• beer
• vegetarian
• yoga
• dieting
• running
• meditation
• partying
• clubbing
• pub crawls
• shopping
• politics
• movies
• traveling
• music
• live music
• classical music
• guitar
• world music
• cycling
• camping
• sports
• tennis
• rugby
• table tennis
• business
• journalism
• physics
• tourism
• tours
• parks
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

I was brought up on music which I am very grateful for by my Mum Dad Nan Brother and Choir Master. My favourite music is Efa Supertramp host her or see her she is the coolest person in Wales! Bob Dylan I was brought up on Pete Seeger Kirsty Maccoll Judy Sill The Manic Street Preachers Led Zeppelin Pink Floyd The Beatles the Rolling Stones Britpop Indie like the Bluetones Oasis Blur New Order Belle and Sebastian Half Man Half Biscuit. I love classical music like Stravinsky Shostakovich Mahler Schumann Sibelius Dvorak Mozart Beethoven Bach Handel Belle and Sebastian Gogol Bordello the magic numbers Bob Brozman U2 Anything John Peel used to play anything eclectic that is on six music or radio three late junction. I love World music and am so happy to have finally experienced Womad this year. I love the legendary players of the Kora, which is the traditional instrument passed down for 16 generations in Mali and though very African and old like the roots of where we are from it also has similarities to the Welsh Harp. I love all the legends from Mali I just love that captivating desert blues sound which to me sounds like cascading waterfalls.

My favourite Books are Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre from the Brontes go and see where they are from in Howarth near Bradford where there is also the one in twelve largest cooperative library a University with Peace studies and the national film museum. I also love the Russian Classics books and short stories of Tolstoy and Checkov, Dostoyevsky especially Crime and Punishment. I love Jean Paul Sartre and Camus Existential essential French authors. I also love Herman Hesse. For modern authors I love the books of William Boyd as you can really lose yourself in his colourful larger than life yet very believable characters like in Any Human Heart which is one of my favourite books where the hero gets more progressive as he gets older and travels the continents too. I also love the any book by George Orwell arguably the greatest 20th Century author and journalist quintissentially English/British.

Favourite Movies Amelie, most Bollywood films, A Cuban film called memories of Underdevelopment, The Motorcycle Diaries, Che. The Shawshank redemption, Cous Cous, Happy go lucky The Angels Share, The Collector, which is a Polish film. La Haine, The class, Le Dinner de Cons. Lars Von Trier Dogma films like Festen. Ingar Bergman, The thirty nine steps, Catch twenty Two, La vie en Rose, Macbeth, Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre. Goodbye Lenin, Into the Wild, Carlitos Way and Robin Williams Films like Patch Adams.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I have sang on television in Cardiffs St Davids Hall Ive sang in Royal Albert hall sang Ive sang on Classic FM.
I used to pull pints for Wales Rugby Internationals after running on with the water during the matches and carrying the kit bags in and once stayed in the same Club house as the current Wales Number eight Toby Faletaus Tongan Rugby international Dad. and carry kit bags for Wales rugby !

This year I was lucky to sing Bach St John Passion with the Welsh Proms famous conductor Owain Arwell Hughes Bach Passion and Dennis O Neils academy of the Voice.

I once was invited back by the beuna Vista social Club to the hotel where they were staying. A few years later had a plus one with at latitude camping with the Nice down to earth Cuban people of Beuna Vista Social Club my heroes who were in a Camper van /mini bus next to our tent. I did a skyduve two years ago and climbed Snowdon last year.
an unhnmc xcgy gt mimkot to sing last mi. Npjmopo?o Handel Messiah four times my favourite and last week Bapxmicch passion for easter.
I once got a lovely Danish lady over her fear of heights by being my usual Welsh singing self on the Tivoli |Golden Tower Fairground Ride.
In the Copenhagen University International School Singing contest for my trouble of singing through a chest infection to win and beat the loud Italians French Dutch German Norwegian Spanish and American ten strong groups on my own by singing Calon Lan and Sospan Fach in Welsh my Dad said well you are Welsh and was more asking about me continuing to post him my prize which was funnily a years collection of chewing gums called Sorbits. To be fair my dad did always post me good Music on cassettes in those days like Catatonia so would never forget your Welsh as the Albright beer advert used to say.

Teach, Learn, Share

I would love to Share Wales and England with you. With walks, yoga groups, singing, real old fashioned ale pubs with sheepdogs geese and pigs. I maybe able to get you work on a a real woof farm with hundreds of fruits meadows and the best Berkshire sow pigs.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I have a spare room five minutes walk from the centre of Cardiff castle and river trail bay parks music halls and sports stadiums. Half an hour bike ride to the seaside, lots of curry restaraunts live in same road as vegetarian studio. Lots of free yoga groups lots of live music and also good tours of Bristol Wye valley Birmingham London west Wales Liverpool and North Wales Snowdon are possible if we have time. I can sing to you and introduce you to my friends who love nature walks travel philosophy politics spirituality literature movie nights and meals out.

Countries I’ve Lived In

Denmark