Hi everybody, I am Simon from Budapest, Hungary, an exchange student at the Universität zu Köln, and I am searching for a room/couch/ anything at this point to stay for a few days in Cologne from the 28th of October. I will be there for an Erasmus+ exchange programme until the end of may and unfortunately started to look for a room on WG-gesucht very late and could not find a place yet. I can accommodate very quickly to any circumstances since I have been backpacking a lot. I would totally respect any open-minded, kind-hearted host — the fact of sharing one’s living space with a stranger is such a generous thing to do in my opinion that I would absolutely respect their needs, way of living, rhythm and views. I am very social, but usually a little less in the first few weeks after moving to a new place — I still need some time to calm my cultural shock, that I am hoping to be less intense in Cologne having built promising prospects based on what I have been told about by my friends about the city. Personally, I am liberal and care deeply about such current issues as environmental crisis, therefore I try to be very conscious about my choices when it comes to traveling, groceries, or basically my consumption in general. I am not naive, I see clearly the worrying tendencies, yet I beleive strongly in equality in any social sense and the universality of fundamental human rights. I am a little short of money at the moment and do not want to ask too much from my parents, that is why it would be important to me not to book a hotel/hostel for this temporary period while I find a room in a WG. I could only spare around €8-10 per day for this temporary solution. On the other hand, as a people pleaser, I would feel down and disappointed in myself for just crashing at someones flat without giving anything, so I would defenitely would wanna do all the chores my saving angel(s) flat owner(s) would let me do. Since I have been living alone for quite a few times in different places, I had to cook for myself, that I do passionately. It gives me a somewhat satisfactory feeling and happines to feed the ones I care about and nontheless it also distracts me from torning between problems I might be having, be it anything. I would be happy and open to give any more information. For now, I think that now it is detailed enough to give a vague idea, what my host-to-be could expect from me in the first place. :)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I have to find temporary places to stay in Cologne until I find a permanent WG for the time I am studying here as an Erasmus+ exchange student from the beginning of October. (Actually would be great from the 28th of September)

Interests

• literature
• performing arts
• modern art
• environment
• traveling
• socializing
• music
• hiking
• language exchange
• cinema
• nature
• dance
• social justice
• theatre
• france
• cultural exchange
• french musique electric

Music, Movies, and Books

My father is a literary critic and aesthetics professor, so I tend to feel inerudite and behind, compared to him, but I really like to read, especially novels about the events of the 20th century, told in a sophisticated or complex narrative such as Les Thibaults by Roger Martin du Gard ot Parrallel Stories by Péter Nádas. My other favourite genres are postmodern american fiction (such as Paul Auster) and short story literature (Lydia Davis, Alice Munro and a few Hungarian authors probably no one knows haha) I study film theory and been watching movies on a daily basis since I was about 11-12 years old. My favourite periods and paradigmas are the new waves and european modernism, the Hollywood renaissance and new Hollywood, slow cinema, and the arthouse cinema in any ages. I listen to music a lot, around 45 days in a year in total. What I listen to depends on my mood, but my favourite genres are classical, (punk)-rock in the 60s, 70s, 80s, new wave and art rock, hungarian, transsylvanian, romanian and east european folk music, jazz, morna and pop too. My favourite artists/composers/groups are Leonard Cohen, David Byrne, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Nina Simone, Vivaldi, Beewthowen, Schubert, Cesaria Evora, Marcus Miller, The Kinks, New Order, Pink Floyd, Lana Del Rey and a few hungarian folk musicians.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

When I was 20, I moved abroad to work for the first time in my life with a 10 months long fix-term contract to work in a small village hotel in the Swiss Alps. I could finally learn proper german and french there.

Teach, Learn, Share

My mother language is Hungarian, besides that I speak fluent English, German, French and unfortunately fading Russian. I come from an intellectual background (my father used to be a university professor of literature and aesthetics), so I am relatively cultivated thanks to that and always been passionate to have long discussions or even debates about different topics. (Mostly cinema, theater, social phenomena, different cultural experiences, divers topics of public life)

What I Can Share with Hosts

My mother language is Hungarian, besides that I speak fluent English, German, French and unfortunately fading Russian. I come from an intellectual background (my father used to be a university professor of literature and aesthetics), so I am relatively cultivated thanks to that and always been passionate to have long discussions or even debates about different topics. (Mostly cinema, theater, social phenomena, different cultural experiences, divers topics of public life)