CURRENT MISSION

To not have a current mission. I honestly don't know what else to say.

ABOUT ME

Our most recent trip was to Costa Rica, which was a blast. We didn't make it to India last December as Amy ended up in grad school instead. Our next tentative trip is shaping up to be Japan.

We both were born and raised in Illinois, a midwestern state in the USA.
We've been together over fifteen years, married over nine.
Collectively we've lived in IL, NYC, New Orleans, FL--and now we're getting ready to move out to the great Northwest!
Currently we are juggling with uprooting ourselves and selling our house and car, donating as much as possible to all that life demands.

I don't expect too many people would come to Gainesville as a final destination, but there are a number of things to do, somewhat dependent on the time of year and your tolerance for heat. Lots of natural springs, nature trails, it's about an hour and a half to either coast, or if you like Disney stuff or theme parksthen it's about two or two and a half hours awayto Orlando or Tampa.
If you happen to be that rare person who is making a trip to Gainesville, we actually aren't hosting right now because we're getting ready to move, but we, or one of us possibly, could meet you for coffee or a drink.

PHILOSOPHY

I bleed my own blood.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Well, for one, I take the time to actually answer these questions, some of which are relevant and some of which seem a bit asinine. But answer I will...

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

When Chris was living in NYC back in the late 90's, he let a Swedish student crash on his couch for a night, but that was before Couchsurfing.com had been formed. Since then, we've been hosted in Barcelona (not on couchsurfing), Paris, Vienna and Madrid. The best part of our travels have involved couchsurfing.

Interests

Photography. Travel. Science. Arts. Music. Books. Experiences. Honestly it feels kind of lame trying to put all of our interests down in a short paragraph. Let's just say we'll try it and tell you if it is still an 'interest' afterwards.

• arts
• books
• photography
• coffee
• drinking
• traveling
• juggling
• music
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies- Blade Runner, Airplane!, Super Size Me, Star Wars, The Fifth Element, The Lover, Volver, Endless Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind, Almost Famous, Lord Of The Rings trilogy, The Royal Tennenbaums, Bottle Rocket, Clerks, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, All About My Mother, Manhattan, Maria Full Of Grace, The Goonies, documentaries

Music- First Aid Kit, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Kings of Leon, Jack Johnson, The Arcade Fire, Wilco, Ben Harper, Cat Power, Bjork, Damien Rice, Death Cab For Cutie, The Decemberists, Feist, The Flaming Lips, Gillian Welch, Jeff Buckley, Josh Ritter, Mazzy Star, PJ Harvey, U2, The Mountain Goats, Patty Griffin, Death Cab For Cutie, Elliott Smith, Fiona Apple, Flogging Molly, Jeff Buckley, much much more

Books- Salman Rushdie, Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, Robertson Davies, Richard Dawkins, E.O.Wilson, Ellen Gilchrist, Marguerite Duras, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anne Carson, too many to list here.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Amy would probably go with her trip to Africa and Chris would say Iceland. Both extraordinary places that were different from what we experience here in the United States. Definitely that is more true of Amy's Africa trip, but Iceland was amazing as well. We'd recommend getting out of your comfort zone no matter where you're from.

Teach, Learn, Share

Amy enjoys playing music and we both like to listen to it. Any new recommendations are appreciated. Chris is probably too interested in science for his own good, especially popular science books, but it really seems like we're losing that battle here in the states. We could probably learn you a few things, and hopefully you might do the same for us. But we'd settle for just giving someone a possibly kick-ass experience.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Benin, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Ghana, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States