CURRENT MISSION

Connecting and reconnecting.
We're on a one year trip through Southeast Asia since December 2019. We were...but of course 2020 had different plans for us! We're now travelling slowly through Europe towards our home in London.

ABOUT ME

David (DC): I'm a white, British middle- aged middle class CIS gender man and through a kind of evolution - personal experience, conversations, reading etc, I have become more aware of the privileges all those aspects of my life bring (one of which is being able to do what I am doing now i.e. taking a "career break" and travelling); not yet, in truth, how to turn this awareness into positive action...at least as much as I could be.

I enjoy meeting new people and am always looking to step outside my echo chamber - one of the ways we can lessen divisions in our societies is by hearing other points of view; points of view we may not agree with.

I am affected by a lot of what comes with living as part of a small housing co-op - heightened awareness of the communities surrounding us and the bad hands they're so often dealt.

Laura (LK): Originally Canadian but has fully acclimatised to life in London. She is passionate about helping people and living each moment in the present - although that's sometimes very challenging! Enjoys music, cycling around the city, great coffee and being physically active.

PHILOSOPHY

DC: Be open to others; practice gratitude; do what you can to make your corner of the planet cleaner and more open to others; share; get perspective; a tough thing for me is separating my behaviours from my fundamental (good) self. I fuck up, often. Then move on. The world we live in is increasingly polarised and many of us distanced from the impacts of how we live; broadly being mindful of this and our choices as consumers is a guiding principle to how we live.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Everything's connected. We connect with our guests in a values-based way; that's why we joined in the first place. CS is I suppose perhaps the anti-Airbnb...discuss?

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

As hosts we experience it all the time - positive experiences. And it's true! In fact we're getting worried now, because we want to write wonderful references for all our surfers - and sometimes these can sound similar. I guess in the past at least many of our surfers were young couples travelling - which of course makes sense and nothing wrong with that, they all had an open-hearted approach to life and were respectful and generous. We've only surfed a few times ourselves but our hosts were as we would hope - see above!

Interests

Trying to be a good citizen: volunteering with homeless and refugee orgs (including offering our spare room for asylum seekers); general appreciation and interest in nature, (clouds! trees! landscape!), bike riding both commuting and longer rides); music of various kinds, theatre, cinema, community (sharing ours), travelling, politics, Having fun. Carbohydrates. Definitely carbs - good bread, good cake.

Music, Movies, and Books

We read a lot and listen to a lot of radio as we don't have tv.
DCs fave book: 'Any Human Heart' by William Boyd.
LKs fave book of all time:'Le Petit Prince'
Music: Love!! Really wide ranging tastes so a lazy shorthand would be - much of BBC 6 Music's output jives with us.

Enjoy a lot of films and TV. Touchstones for DC would be 'Withnail and I'; 'Sideways'; 'Spinal Tap';

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

(Truly) felt the love of another person.

Teach, Learn, Share

Listening and learning from each other is a good starting point. Practically we can do some basic bike maintenance. LK is handy with a sewing machine and mixes a good drink too :-)

What I Can Share with Hosts

A warm welcome, generous with our time and space. Different perspectives, hopefully. We're both very different people and that in itself is entertaining for people to witness.

Countries I’ve Visited

Cambodia, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Laos, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, United Kingdom

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