*****50 Country Club*****

-----CURRENT MISSION-----

"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That is my religion."

"I just want to travel from city to city making memories I can barely remember."

"Live everyday like it's your last, and then 1 day -- you'll be right."

ABOUT ME

I moved to Budapest in 2012 to attend a Master's Degree program at Central European University (CEU). After graduating in 2013, I somehow got stuck and now manage my own Automotive Software consultancy. Most of my time is spent up in the air traveling.

...I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. I'm a 35 year old Sagittarius (juss sayin' is all). My family is of Egyptian/Lebanese/Italian/Greek decent (Mediterranean Mix n Match). I've lived all my life in Los Angeles, except during college when I lived for 4 years in lovely Santa Barbara California (about an hour north of Los Angeles...look it up! INCREDIBLE place). I graduated from UCSB (University of California, Santa Barbara) with a BA in International Relations and Socioeconomics. ZzzzzzzZzzzZzz....do you want my resume?

Directly after graduation I moved to and lived in the Netherlands for a year (Amsterdam), working in commercial production at an advertising agency...but mainly to party, travel, and smoke herb. After trying to "find myself" in Holland; I moved back to LA and "found myself" unemployed.

I then worked as a Sales and Marketing Consultant for a subsidiary of Exxon-Mobil. Managing a region of about 100 privately owned Exxon-Mobil locations across Los Angeles, and hosted a lot of people on CouchSurfing! Traveled quite a bit as well.

After moving to Budapest and getting my Master's at CEU in 2013 as explained above, I got a job doing account management for a software company here. It was with them that I've traveled to China and lived in Japan for a few months, and why I'm still in Budapest. Since then I've got into real estate and started my own companies.

I like to travel when I have any time off. My random favorites in no particular order so far have been; Japan, Mexico, Hungary, Lebanon, Serbia, Ukraine, China, Holland, Belarus, Egypt, Crete..and all the rest :) I love to discover new countries, learn a bit of their language/culture, then consume anything and everything they have to eat/drink/offer.

I think I'm fun, outgoing, kind, well-traveled and cultured, entertaining, giving, spontaneous, charismatic, energetic (at times), philosophical, loving, affable, talented, positive, generous and helpful -- yet cynical, judgemental, satirical, impulsive, dismissive, skeptical, realistic, distrustful, schizophrenic, cold, chronic, manic, arrogant, overzealous...and much more. You get the good with the bad -- pros and cons I guess :-/

+++++PHILOSOPHY+++++

"Life is nothing but a series of fleeting moments, defined by fractions of a second, gone in an instant." -- ME!

"I'm not worried about the future, because the future doesn't worry about me." -- Me, 2012

"Social Media only tells you, that which you decide to tell it!" - Me

"Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it." - Churchill

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning, does what he wants to do, and goes to bed at night." -Bob Dylan

"You can't put a price on freedom." -?

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." -Edgar A. Poe

"The world is a rich tapestry." - Saul Goodman

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who comes near that precious jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force! When you give up that force -- you are ruined!" - Patrick Henry

"What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are." -Emerson

"If we don't take action now, we'll settle for nothing later. If we'll settle for nothing now, then we'll settle for nothing later." - Zach de la Rocha

"Some birds aren't meant to be caged -- their feathers are just too bright." -Shawshank

"If god does not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." -Voltaire

"Love must have wings to fly away from love, and to fly back again." -?

"For every man knows what he possesses, without knowing what it is worth." -Jose Saramago

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue; and those who love it will eat it's fruit." -Proverbs 18:21

"I don't dance now, I make money moves. I don't bother with these hoes, don't let these hoes bother me."
- Cardi B

"Just squeeze your rage into a bitter little ball, and release it at an inappropriate time. Like when I hit that referee with a whiskey bottle. Remember that, honey?....when daddy hit the referee?" -Homer Simpson

"Everybody is somebody, but nobody wants to be themselves." -- Gnarls Barkley

"The fiercest agonies have shortest reign." -William Cullen Bryant

"Wise man closes mouth, madman closes fist. Young man shows his age.... Bad man don't exist, no, evil man exist. Good man don't exist, no, righteous man exist. Strong man don't exist, no, undying man exist. Weak man don't exist, just flesh and blood exist." -- Frank Ocean

"Small minds discuss people. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas." -Eleanor Roosevelt

"Don't keep all your eggs in one basket, and don't count your eggs before they hatch."

"Mean what you say and say what you mean, because those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter!"

"I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible desire to give it."

"There is NOTHING so difficult, that is does not become easy with steadfast and intelligent perseverance" -?

"No matter the situation -- whether good or bad -- you can be sure it will change!" -?

"If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another." -Tenzin Gyatso

"In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher." -Dalai Lama

"Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck." -Dalai Lama

"Two things change people in life; money, and women." - Croat Bus Driver

"A fish with its mouth closed, never gets caught." -Tony Accardo

"For every man follows his own path in search of grace, whatever that grace may be." -Jose Saramago

"I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not." - Socrates

"The life of a silversmith's apprentice was NOT an easy one!" -Peter Griffin

"Excellence is not an act, but a habit..." - ?

"Fall in love with the process, and the results will come." -?

"A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the constant pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness."
- Albert Einstein

"The best way to control the opposition, is to lead it ourselves."
- Lenin

"In every deliberation, we must consider its impact on the seventh generation." -The great law of the Iroquois

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for the night; TEACH a man to fish, and he eats for the rest of his life..." -?

"Now I may be an idiot, but there is ONE thing I am not Sir, and THAT Sir, is an idiot." -Peter Griffin

"Funny thing about birds; you never quite know where they've been, or what they've done." -?

"La vie est un jeu de puzzle, et tu es la morceau qui'il me manque..."

"Will I ever get to where I'm going? If I do, will I even know when I am there? If the wind blew me in the right direction, would I even care?" -Incubus

"That shit is raunch Magoo" -Robalicious

"Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!" - William Prescott

"You keep talkin' like a bitch, you get slapped like a bitch." - Mr. Blonde

"Too long we have tried to expand our glorious empire out to the stars...only to be driven BACK!" -DEL

"Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money, and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom, and truth, and the improvement of your soul?" -Socrates

"The watched pot never boils..." -?

"How about you Lash-Laroo...? Can you keep your spurs from jinglin' and janglin'?" -The Wolfe

"The only more powerful motor-force than vapor electricity and atomic energy, is will." -Einstein

"Amsterdam is like candy for the eye..." -?

"Ewww...I don't want Dengue bro."
- boof Cambodia

"If you can touch my Doberman, you can have it."
-?

"Ahhhh unguarded breakfast: the sweetest taboo."
- Homer Simpson

"What belongs to others, we don't want. What belongs to us, we will never surrender." - Tito, Montenegro

"If you walk around looking to be offended, life will not disappoint." -?

"Do not trade true beauty only for it's appearance; for that would be trading gold, for bronze." - Socrates

"Dealing with backstabbers there is one thing I learned; they're only powerful when you got your back turned." - Em

"When you think you're gonna die yesterday, today is sweeeeeeet....So hang in there. Lose your shit tomorrow, today is no day to fall apart." - Ozark

"Live everyday like it's your last, and then 1 day you'll be right." - Sinatra

"....it's like drowning your problems in a bottle of Gin; by early morning, they know how to swim." - ?

"Sometimes I feel like I'm fighting for a life I ain't got time to live." - Dallas Buyers Club

"Sheep spend their whole lives scared of the Wolf, only to be eaten by the Shepherd in the end." -?

"Sheep forever fear the Wolf, but it's the Shepherd who eats them." -?

"The only limits we have, are the limits we believe." -?

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." - EAP

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." -EAP

"When I don't know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you." - Ram Dass

"...we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine, while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions." - Viktor Frankl

"I don't like em puttin' chemicals in the water, that turn the frickin' frogs gay!!" - Alex Jones

"The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Jefferson

"Occultus Dominus Obsequious Sororium"

"Are you SURE that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos?" - Viktor Frankl

"He who has a WHY to live for, can bear almost any HOW." - Nietzsche

"...there are two races of men in this world, but only these two -- the "race" of the decent man, and the "race" of the indecent. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people." -- Viktor Frankl

"Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam." (The emotion of suffering, ceases to be suffering the moment we form a clear and precise picture of it). -- Spinoza

"There are things which must cause you to lose your reason---or you have none to lose. An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation, is normal behavior." -- Lessing

"You can be as mad as a mad dog, or curse the heavens; but in the end, you will have to let go." -- Benjamin Button

"If the ruler wants to play the game by himself and follow secret policies, he must present a decoy to the mass. He cannot escape the mass, but he can draw between himself and that mass an invisible curtain, a screen, on which the mass will see projected the mirage of some politics; while the real politics are being made behind it." -- Jacques Ellul

"Life is economics. Natural systems of profit and loss, wholey reliant on perpetual storm to sustain itself. Violent gales of creative destruction ceaselessly clearing paths for something new. The only true choice we have is to weather the storm, or to welcome it. I'll always strive for the latter -- because there can be no creation without destruction, no beginning without end." -?

"It is more important to know what type of person has a certain disease, than to know what type of a disease a certain person has." - Hippocrates

"Tyranny -- like hell -- is not easily conquered." -- Thomas Payne

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

(I'M CURRENTLY LIVING IN BUDAPEST -- 6 YEARS NOW) ...But, most CS experience is in LA, SO -- I like to host and help people from all over the world trying to see and discover the REAL Los Angeles/Budapest... and eventually make new friends that I can hopefully meet up with when I embark on journeys of my own! I love to network and socialize, I love to help and host, so essentially Couch Surfing is perfect! Los Angeles is quite a confusing city, it's very large and decentralized, so it helps to have some one who knows show you around or at least point you in the right direction. I can do that. In fact it would be my pleasure! But BE SURE TO COME READY TO PARTY, HAVE FUN, GO OUT! Don't come to LA on the tail end of some lonnng trip, tired and not wanting to do anything but sit in the house! Not gonna happen! If I host, I want people who are EXCITED to see LA and all it has to offer! Same goes for Budapest!!!
: )
I have very little SURFING experience, mainly hosting, but hopefully that will change.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Hosted the following -

Natasja and Pernille (Copenhagen,Denmark).
Trevor and Jonas (Nuremberg,Germany).
Hakima (France), Anouk (Holland), Chiara (Italy) and Marina (France).
Marouane, Ilyess, Elisa,and Francois (France).
Lucie, Sophie, Claire, Merry, Chloe (Brussels,Belgium)
Benjamin and Nicolas (Dusseldorf,Germany)
Melissa, Biancha, Lisa (Munich,Germany)
Lisa, Amanda, Katie, Laura (Scotland) Rebecca(England)
Robi (Hungary)
Vassi, Aleksander, and Ivo (Bulgaria)
Idan and Dotan (Israel)
Simón and Eugenio (Spain)
------------------------------------------------------
I've technically surfed one time in Barcelona, but I met the host through a friend, and paid a little to sleep there...so

Interests

Global cuisine, history, food/drink, religion, culture, and languages. I like to meet people from around the world, make friends -- exchange stories and experiences.
Travel...TRAVEL...travel, Music (all kinds/all languages), Friends, Family, Snow Boarding, Bass Guitar, Swimming, Cars, Hiking, Lifting, THE Los Angeles Lakers, Boofing to the maximum....
being spontaneous, outgoing, playing the devil's advocate, friendly debates....being a mediator of sorts. Binge drinking.
Exploration.Socialization.Networking.
Learning and experiencing more and more everyday.
Education, sleeping, eating and of course hearing, seeing and tasting! Open minded people. MovNat.

Music, Movies, and Books

All the good ones.
:p

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've seen love lost, and magic made.
New Years in Amsterdam was pretty memorable.
Burek in Istanbul
Walking on a frozen canal in A'dam
The Great Pyramids of Giza kind of left an impression.
Liverpool Champion's League Match
Halloween in Isla Vista.
Skiing in Montreal, the High Tetras in Slovakia, the Austrian alps, etc.
Hash sticks all over Jamaica, Paris/the world
6th Street in Austin Texas, period.
White Water Rafting Kern Valley River, California.
Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, wild
Being Robbed in Budapest.
Flying around the world in 2011 (EU/UK/KOREA/USA)
3 continents in 3 months 2 times in 1 year (2014) JAPAN EU USA JAPAN EU USA
Ramen in Japan
Cevapi and Punjena Pleskovitca in Beograd, Srbija
Hummus in Beirut
Pizza on the Black Sea
Around the world in 3 weeks (NOV 2015) BUDAPEST--PARIS--DETROIT--TOKYO--SHANGHAI--DOHA--BUDAPEST
5 countries in 6 weeks DEC 2016 - JAN 2017: BUDAPEST--Kuala Lumpur--Singapore--Langkawi--Koh Lipe--Saigon--Phnom Penh--Sihanoukville--Koh Rong--Siem Reap--BUDAPEST
2017 Budapest Marathon Finisher.
Pizza Burek in Skopje.
Cevap in Sarajevo.
BUD -- DET -- BUD -- LA -- BUD -- DET -- NY -- BUD -- LA -- BUD 2017
Mediterranean Tuna Steak in Croatia.
LA - PAR - LILLE - Djerba - Paris - BUD - CRO -- LEB - PAR - LA 2021

Teach, Learn, Share

English in all its entirety, Discourse on Globalization, Corporatization, and International Theoretical Approaches. Languages. Sales/Marketing. How to Drink in Excess, philosophy, Comedy, hiking, mediation, open-mindedness, kindness, tolerance...boofiness to the boof maximum of boofetry. BOOF.
I will surely also teach you, once we've met, the concept of 'Boof' and the myriad of possibilities in embodies.

What I Can Share with Hosts

A friend.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vatican City State, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Hungary, Japan, Netherlands, United States