I'm Alix Stödter, mother of four (17,16,14,9). My husband died six years ago, and one of our plans together was to travel the world with our children - one of my aims is to make this plan come real for the children and me. Two years ago we started with Australia, this year we want to travel to South America! As I lived in Madrid for a year my Spanish is pretty solid.

A bit more information about us:

Alix works with a consultancy firm, loves playing tennis and hockey, occasionally horseback-riding, cooking, travelling and doing some volunteer work. Amelie (17) enjoys: volleyball, tennis, volunteer work and reading. Julius (16) enjoys football, hockey, volunteer work and reading newspapers and books. Harriet (14) is very keen on Hockey, loves cuddling our dog Fanny (a Labradoodle) and does the things she does with passion. Fernande (9), aka Nanne, enjoys dancing, arts and crafts, and tennis. We live in a suburb of Hamburg (30 Min ride from the city center) with a dog, cats, chicken - very colourful!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Already with my parents (decades before couchsurfing existed) we always had international guests to stay - and loved visiting countries and getting to know people and culture much better by staying with people on a private basis, too. So I'm convinced that the concept of couchsurfing helps tremendously to understand each other better and to get to know other countries (or, if we're hosts, Germany) better. This has continued for me as a student and now as an adult - and I'm happy for this opportunity to pass this positive experience on to our children.

Interests

I enjoy a moderate level of sports, volunteer work, family, friends, cooking, spending time together, politics, travelling, learning new things.

• cats
• dogs
• arts
• culture
• books
• dancing
• cooking
• coach
• crafts
• politics
• reading
• traveling
• volunteer work
• equestrian
• sports
• soccer
• hockey
• tennis
• volleyball
• business
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

Hard to say - varies a lot.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Well - amazing? We've moved to England for seven months with then three children whilst our house was being renovated - at that time that seemed pretty amazing.

Teach, Learn, Share

Will have to look up what that means - I enjoy teaching (I used to be a trainer for adults and am currently a coach for adults in business topics), I enjoy learning (life means life-long-learning, doesn't it?) and I enjoy sharing thoughts and experiences - and we enjoy having guests!

What I Can Share with Hosts

We're interested in the countries we're visiting, we're open, we enjoy (if the host is interested) to exchange experiences - but we are independent, too,.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, China, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

England, Spain