| MarieJose74 is a CS Ambassador living in Rotterdam! |
| MarieJose74 has been vouched for |
| VERIFIED MEMBER Identity Checked, Location Verified (3) more info |
| Couch available | Yes |
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| CouchSurf requests replied to | 96% |
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| member since | March 8th, 2007 |
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| profile views | 11,794 |
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| age | 38 |
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| gender | Female |
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| membername | MarieJose74 |
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| occupation | living a great life/ be a friend/ communicate |
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| education | Building Physics Engineer (TU Eindhoven) Sustainability |
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| grew up in | Breda - the Netherlands |
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| Direct Profile URL |
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Languages- Dutch (Netherlands)Expert
- DutchExpert
- EnglishExpert
- Portuguese (Portugal)Expert
- GermanIntermediate
- SpanishBeginner
- FrenchBeginner
- Dutch (Belgium)Intermediate
- AfrikaansBeginner
Couch Information
Couch Available: Yes
Preferred Gender: Any
No smoking allowed
Has children: No
Can host children: No
Has pets: No
Can host pets: No
Max Surfers Per Night: 3
Shared Sleeping Surface: No
Shared Room: DependsWHAT? space on floor/ mattress on floor
WHERE? in the living room
SHARE BED? in general not, but we have a 1,5 person inflatable mattress for couples as well :-)
(For some reason I get a lot of requests from 20 year old people, I do prefer you to be a little more my age, say from 25/28 up... or convince me why you want to stay with ME?)
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Please read our profiles before requesting our couch
Only personal requests have a chance on a positive reply
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Please use the Couchsurfing Request button
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Please do not ask for a couch during:
--- 3rd of August - ??th of August ---
As I will not be near Rotterdam
---- I live together with my boyfriend ----
so get a look at his profile too (TRA)
He has of course a big voice if you can stay with us or not.
I live in the center of Rotterdam with my boyfriend (in the real city center), 5 minutes walking distance from Central Station. We live on the 6th floor, there is an elevator, but always about 7/8 steps before entering our floor.
About the couch:
We have a spare mattress and an inflatable mattres (120 cm) to put in the living room. We do have a few sleeping bags and sheets and so, but we don't tend to wash them every time a couchsurfer borrows them. If you want a clean sleeping bag/sheets, you´d better bring your own.
We have some blankets, duvets and sleeping bags, but we prefer if you bring your own (read text above). Of course we know with the handluggage thing of low cost airlines, that might be difficult.
We only host one single surfer or a couple (straight, bi, gay, friends) at the same time. We will not put two strangers in the room at the same time without your agreement!
In the case of travelling with a friend/ partner, please give the link of the profile of your friend/co-traveller.
We do not have pets.
We do not smoke. We thank you for not smoking in our appartment, neither on the balcony.
About Rotterdam:
Rotterdam has a lot of architecture, the river, the big harbours, nice cities around, Kinderdijk is not far (windmills), Gouda (cheese), Delft (historical city and lots of students), Leiden (same, but other kind of university), Den Haag (where the government is), beaches on half an hour by train, lot of museums in Rotterdam and bars to go out as well.
Tilburg, Utrecht and Amsterdam are about one hour by train.
We live 5 minutes walking from central station. Therefore, busses, train, tram and metro are just around the corner. You can also rent a bike if you want to explore a bit more of the city. It is a very good way to see quite a lot in shorter time.
IMPORTANT!
If you want to surf our couch, I/we also want to spend time with you :-D. So we prefer your requests for weekends or eventually Tuesdays (my regular day off is Wednesday), or before bank holidays (which we unfortunately not have many in the Netherlands). If you still want to surf our couch on another day of the week, we'd apreciate when you can tell me why we should make an exception. It means though to get up around 7-ish latest to get out of the house before 8!
There is no spare key. When we're out of the house, you are out as well and are invited to discover the city and surroundings. But most times I/we will spend time with you anyway.
I prefer to go to bed early, but depends also on the day after (day off or not).
One or two nights is best, but if it works out fine, it might be longer, or you want to return (it happened several times!).
Please indicate why Rotterdam/why me/us, whether you're a vegetarian and what budget you have. That can be very useful information.
Us ourselves: We prefer in general vegetarian food, but are not strictly vegetarian.
Click for weather forecastFriends (288)
 Isabel
37, Female
Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto
Portugal
Friends since December 2005
"Met through common friends"
Friendship Type: Best Friend
  2 |
 Ricardo and Ana Lamego
38, Several people
Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto
Portugal
Friends since April 2007
"We met in Porto at a CS dinner party in Diu! Been meeting a few times since then and becoming friends!"
Friendship Type: Best Friend
I vouched for MarieJose74
|
 TRA
23, Male
Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland
Netherlands
Friends since April 2010
"Met her at her birthday party!"
Friendship Type: Best Friend
I vouched for MarieJose74
30+  30+  30+ |
 Ricardo Machado
25, Male
Dublin, Dublin
Ireland (Republic of)
Friends since November 2007
"met her in lisboa's cs dinner"
Friendship Type: Close Friend
I vouched for MarieJose74
2 2 |
 MAR-TINNY
30, Female
Berlin, Berlin
Germany
Friends since June 2008
"Festa Serralves in Porto and many times after that :-) I appreciate Marie´s positive energy, her open attitude and biking spirit :)"
Friendship Type: Good Friend
I vouched for MarieJose74
3 |
 Joanne vdP
33, Female
Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland
Netherlands
Friends since January 2010
"Weekly meeting :-)"
Friendship Type: Close Friend
5 |
 Jan Van Nespen
31, Male
Lisbon, Lisbon
Portugal
Friends since March 2007
"we were looking for a house together in Porto and now we're good friends here..."
Friendship Type: Good Friend
I vouched for MarieJose74
|
 Judite Rocha
47, Female
Porto, Porto
Portugal
Friends since March 2008
"We´ve met at CS meetings"
Friendship Type: Close Friend
I vouched for MarieJose74
|
 Hugo Barreira
38, Male
Porto, Porto
Portugal
Friends since October 2007
"As a orange scarf"
Friendship Type: Close Friend
6 |
 Filipe Azevedo
30, Male
Madrid, Madrid
Spain
Friends since April 2007
"Mutual friend"
Friendship Type: Friend
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Personal DescriptionFirst: Read my profile before requesting my couch to prevent you and me the disilusions of a mismatch.
Second:My name is Marie-José and NOT Marie or anything like that. If you write down my (correct) name, it will improve your changes in a positive reply :-)
talkative, socially, curious, most times smiling and happy, but also very sensitive, so also can be sad and have no problems to cry/show my emotions when I want or need to.
I like to make new friends, I like to live, I like to travel, I love my family and friends, I like good food and drinks and try new tastes (despite my allergies), I like nature, to walk and to cycle (yes, I am Dutch in this way) .......
You can make me happy with good food, helping with the dishes, nice wines, a cup of tea when it's cold (or just because), dark chocolate, a happy face, a funny story, a walk with a talk, offsprings of plants and herbs, sunshine, a swim in the sea or ocean, sharing book-reading experiences, clean up after yourself (or a bit more, lol) and much more
One time I'll write a book, ok? In the mean time: let's meet and find out what IS all.
I was looking for a new job (in Portugal) as a sustainability promotor/ story teller/ coach/ dutch teacher/ reiki therapist, ..... and became a customer service agent :-)
Now I am back in the Netherlands as a communicative engineer. I inform people about heat pumps in their houses and how to use it the best and most economic way.How I Participate in CSRead this first when you are new on CouchSurfing
Had my first CS dinner in week 16 of 2007 and I loved to meet the people of the Porto group (especially Ana, Ricardo and Juca) and have such nice conversations. Before I already have met some couchsurfers when Jan took me to a dinner with them (André!!!, Leila, Catia)
Now (week41 2007) I can tell you how I participate: I participate in just being me, going to meetings, try to help when necessary, make new friends here, being an active group member of the Porto group within the limited possibilities for hosting.
To see how that works; In my photoalbum online you can have an idea: http://www.picasaweb.com/ followed by m.j.j.oomen And as that already reached the 1 Gb limite, I made a new one with mariejose74 Enjoy!
And organised, together with Stefanie and Liliana the 2007 Portugal Couch Surfing Christmas dinner in Porto.
Also there was a carnaval CS meeting I have organized. I participated in the great Paradise Gerês meeting in February and more local meetings in Porto and for Saturday the 22nd of March I organized the Free Hugs meeting in Porto/ Matosinhos: http://www.couchsurfing.com/meetings.html?mid=8277
Around the big Saint John Party in Porto I co-organized a pre-meeting in the weekend for the people already present and a HUGE meeting on the night itself. I think we were with at least 50, but I could not keep track of it after 30 and the list which got around to register the people present is not complete. Anyway, it was a great party and we enjoyed it fully. See also the article about it in the newspaper:
http://jornal.publico.clix.pt/default.asp?url=/main.asp?dt%3D20080625%26page%3D22%26c%3DB
I kept (co)organizing/ initializing meetings in Porto. And not planning to stop any soon, but now also in Rotterdam, and every time when back in Porto.
In July 2008 I became ambassador for Porto, and continued the things I already did, plus helping whereever I could. Moving to Rotterdam meant not being an ambassador anymore for 90 days, but the "work" continues, and when possible I will help CS with questions and make everyone feels welcome (within reasonable limits of course).
Somewhere in April I became city ambassador again, now for Rotterdam community. And happy to know there are so many active couchsurfers.
The second part of 2010 I co-organised with Hazel, Froukje and Raymond the CSinterklaas weekend 2010. A great succes, according to many participants.
And I host and surf of course too; see next section :-)
CouchSurfing Experiencewith tuna (student music association) I already had a lot of experience offering couches, places on the floor to sleep, and getting the same in return in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Mexico....
Of course I stayed as well a lot at friends places and they stayed at mine. Always good to share good moments together with (new) friends.
Couchsurfed at Jan's place, in Lisbon, for a weekend, couchsurfed at Rui's place (2 weeks), before both of us were cs-members. Couchsurfed at Isabels place, also before both knew about couchsurfing.
Update october 2007: had my first couchsurfer over! Joris stayed here for one night, and although we had so much to talk about that I hardly slept, it was a very good first guest to have.
New update (still october): had my first emergency couch... again Joris, but now he was MY host. The TAP-pilotes were on strike...
Update november 2007: First request for spending a day. From Carmen. Lovely spanish woman, spending a sunny day in Guimarães and Braga and came with me to a birthday dinner of a friend of me. After planning the trip, Seema asked to join us too.
In March 2008 I had Inês Over at my place. Very good experience indeed, sweet girl and nice to talk with, although she had to work a lot for school, we still had a good time together.
In June I moved in with my friend Elsa, as she was looking for someone to share her house with (and expenses of course) and together we have hosted in June 2008:
Kyle from the United States,
Mladen and Nevena from Croatia
and Ted from the United States.
In July 2008 we have been hosting:
Marc from the Netherlands
Sara from Sweden
Ricardo, from Lisbon on his birthday!!!!
And were again hosted by Magda from Braga after the castelo de paixões event in Póvoa de Lanhoso, and the after party in Braga.
August 2008: The first "official" CS experience I had with Ana and Elsa was in "a Coruña", Spain. We stayed there at Alberto's place. He showed us around and organised to meet his friends and CS'ers of a Coruña. Great first CS-being a guest-experience.
After more hosted:
Magda (several times) from Braga
Armando (Raft) and daughter from Braga
Sandra from Coimbra
Ricardo from Lisbon again
In January 2009 I showed around Alessandro, Fabio, Giuseppe and Salvatore, four friend from Italy, who gave my weekend the positive vibes it needed.
In my last home in Porto I hosted:
Susana from Guimarães, Summer 2009
Javi, Ben and Cristina from Santiago de Compostela, September 2009
João, November & December 2009
Wojtek, December 2009
I moved to Rotterdam in January 2010, and keep hosting:
January 2010: Lili
February 2010: Lili again
February 2010: Ricardo Torres
March 2010: Yeliz
April 2010: Armando (Raft) from Braga, Portugal
May 2010: Alessandro, Fabio, Giuseppe, who came this time to the Netherlands for Queen's day, what happened to be the same time as my birthday :-)
June 2010: Mannus
June 2010 & August 2010: Emily for stroopwafelevent (June) and cycling to Kinderdijk (August)
July 2010: Adam
August 2010: Kevin
October 2010: Rogério
October 2010: Henri
November 2010: Jasper, Liza and Katrin during the CSinterklaas weekend 2010
December 2010: Bárbara from Coimbra, Portugal, during the Taizé week in Rotterdam.
August 2011: Kamil from Poland.
November 2011: Kirsten from Germany.
In January 2012 my boyfriend and me moved in together. Of course we continue hosting, starting with our housewarming party:
February 2012: Kirsten again! You see? People become friend in CS!
And Mark from the Hague (the Netherlands)
In the future:..... You?
And being hosted by:
Rumpi, in Porto (she moved to Valencia) in March/April 2009
Pedro in Porto, April & May 2009
Javi from Santiago, July & August 2009 and again July 2010
Pedro from Guimarães, October 2009
Miguel from Lisbon, November 2009
Pedro (&Raquel) again, Porto, January 2009
Hugo in January 2010
Miguel, Porto, in January 2010, in March 2010, in May 2010, in June/July 2010, January 2011 and January 2012... The story continues!
May 2010: Mannus, Groningen
June & July 2010: Ricardo and Ana, Porto/ Vila Nova de Gaia... and in Mafra in the holiday house of Ana's family
September 2010: Richard, Gennep
October 2010: Yeliz, Groningen
January 2011: Joris, Antwerp, Belgium
May 2011: Francesco in Pescara, Italy.
May 2011: Andrea in Assisi, Italy.
Interestspeople, cultures, read (if you have finished your book, no problem to leave it with me ;-) I read in Dutch, English, Portuguese or German), write, talk, meet friends, cook, dance, walk, cycle, swim, beach, a sustainable future and a lot more.PhilosophyCarpe Diem (especially after seeing dead poets society... a looooooooong time ago)
"What is essential is invisible to the eye" The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Paulo Coelho
"Reizen heeft niets te maken met de snelste verbinding tussen twee plaatsen." J. Greshoff
(translation: "Travelling has nothing to do with the fastest connection between two places")
Think positive!Music, Movies, BooksMovies: Dead poets society (watched it at least 5 times; and, except the first time, always had to cry at the last scene in the classroom), House of the Spirits, The name of the Rose, Pay it Forward, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain, The breakfast Club, Frida, Donnie Darko, Um dimanche de fiançailles, Brothers love, Liever Verliefd, Simon, Moulin Rouge, The dear hunter, and many more of course, although I do not go to the cinema very often, and at home I just like to watch a movie with nice company.
Music: very wide range: eighties, folk, rock, world music, nederlandstalig, portuguese. Sting, Dire Straits, Toto, Golden earring, Racoon, de Dijk, Blof, Laïs, Jaap Fischer, The corrs, U2, Madonna, Deolinda, David Fonseca, Humanos, etc etc
Books: Umberto Eco, Isabel Allende, Paulo Coelho, Don Miguel Ruiz, Laura Esquivel, Thea Beckman, Hubert Lampo, and many more, I LOVE reading (if I see letters, I start to read, even if it is just the ingredients of the stuff on the breakfast table), unfortunately not enough time to read all the books I would like to....
And now I just found out about this list with 1001 books you should have read :-S
And of course: O Planeta num Sofá - Uma viagem ao mundo do couchsurfingTypes of People I enjoymy family and friends
Open minded people, with a positive attitude, in love with life, interesting (different) point of views, smart, honest, authentic, funny (but humour is soooo relative), welcoming, different, colourful, and so on.
Teach, Learn, ShareTeach: Dutch language (and a bit Portuguese), love for life, being direct but on the same time polite (at least I think so....), how to flirt ;-)
and I cannot stop teaching that my country is NOT Holland, :-$ but The Netherlands. Also in most other languages NOT Holandes, Holanda, etc it is not the official name (google it and you'll find out). See more here:
In Portuguese: Holanda; Países Baixos
or about the language:O Neerlandês, língua subestimada
In English: Holland; the Netherlands and Dutch language
And my couchsurfer Adam added the following to it:
country in Polish: Niderlandy, language: niderlandzki, in Czech: Nizozemi, nizozemsky
So I can learn as well :-)
learn: new ways of living, new cultures, improve languages (Portuguese and English at this moment, but French, Spanish, German and learning any more new languages, why not?), new points of view, maybe to play another instrument like guitar or piano or flute or.... (I only play the laúd, which is a Spanish kind of lute with origins in the "Úd" in arabic countries) Or how to sing properly?
share: friendship, nice talks, life experiences, love for life, curiosity for everything and everyone, recepies for good food, walks/hikes in the city or at the beach or in other natural surroundings, laughs, dancing, books, etc etc etcOne Amazing Thing I've Seen or Done2005: Moving to Porto without any idea how it will be, just with faith.
2005: Climbing one of the pyramids (I think it was the Pyramid of the sun) in Teotihuacan, Mexico, unfortunately ended just CLOSE to the top because of my fear of heights, but that was amazing for me too.
2008: Rafting on river Paiva in Portugal, near Arouca, super scary, will not easy repeat, but made it!
2010: Walking and climbing the "Fenda de Calcedónia" (kind of a narrow cave with rocks to climb) in the national Park Peneda-Geres, Portugal.
2006: My mother recovering.
1994: My grandfather changing into a more caring person on a high age (or at least showing it more). No one tells me people can not change after a certain age...!!Opinion on the CouchSurfing.org ProjectI like the concept! It is a bit like what we did with tuna (my student music association www.tunina.nl); visiting other tuna's in the world (Mexico, Spain, Germany, Portugal) and the best part is to make new friends, even just for a day or a week. Every meeting teaches you something about life.
And it was a help to "survive" Portugal. You always need friends and I found a lot here! And I happily discovered it is the same in Rotterdam; CS gave me a lot of dear friends.
The only problem now: I want to visit all those great people I have met along the way.Locations TraveledTRAVELED: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland (Republic of), Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland
LIVED: Netherlands, Portugal
WANTS TO GO: Aruba, Canada, China, Finland, Greece, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Sweden, Thailand, United States
What do these numbers mean?
This summary is not a replacement for reading references; it's a quick summary to help you get started. At a glance, you can see how many references a member has, and how many of them are positive, neutral, and negative.
In the second line, you'll see how many references came from people who hosted this member, surfed with them, and traveled with them. These numbers won't always add up to the total: some references are not categorized, and some may be categorized as more than one thing.
When viewing this summary, don't jump to conclusions! Things that are negative for one person may be positive for another, and vice versa. It's important to read references carefully and evaluate what that information means to you. References (184)181Positive 3Neutral 0Negative
15From Hosts 25From Surfers 29Traveling
 From Guido Boselli Asuncion, Paraguay
Mar 8  Positive I didn't know what to expect when I went into my first CS meeting, but ended founding this awesome group of people to which you can connect easily and have a great time! The repply was innmediate but couldn't host me because it was too last minute. However she invited me to the meating where I met her boyfriend and friends! Overall a positive first CS experience
 From Erwin Nieuwstraten Rotterdam, Netherlands
Feb 16  Positive Marijose is a great ambassador, friend and organiser) Always positive happy and smiling and interested in you) With her bf they are a famous CS couple))
 From Pedro Darkman Porto, Portugal
Jan 6 Positive seemed like a nice and smiley girl. it was a brief encounter but i digged the girl:p
 From Kirsten van der Werff Duesseldorf, Germany
Dec 27, 2011 Positive I stayed at her place during the Rotterdam Sinter Klaas Meeting and it was wonderfull to spend time with her. She is a sweet person and I could practise my Dutch with her. I hope to see her again...
 From Andrea Fongo Assisi, Italy
Aug 25, 2011  Positive Marie-José is an intelligent, open-mind-wise and funny city ambassador , the first that I've ever hosted( and so far the only one ). At night I couldn't talk to them as after work I had to meet my gilfriend which I was only able to see that way, so hopefully I found the time in the morning to show them around the castle. It has been an experience with CS where I've helped them more on getting to know Assisi and letting them discover my couch rather then sharing our personalities but I'm sure when we will meet again we will be able to know each others much more. Peace, love, joy adn faith in life, I wish you all of that!. A.
 From Kamil Rzepecki Warsaw, Poland
Aug 24, 2011 Positive During my vacation in the Netherlands I was for one Day in Rotterdam. In spite of it, that Marie-José was very busy, she hosted me. I must admit and I really, really did liked the time which I spent with her:). I find her as a very friendly, nice and open-minded person.
I felt from her lots of positive energy:). I really did, I’m not flattering anybody:).
In CS community I got to know so far a few so much “positive person”. I have only the positive ones, but this one war really great.
I regret only one thing, that we spend so little time and we could have been speaking more:). But I believe we meet each other soon, maybe this time in Poland:)…
 From Wendy_Rotterdam Rotterdam, Netherlands
Aug 16, 2011 Positive MarieJose is a very sunny, sweet and colorful person who is always welcoming new people. She has an open attitude, has a lot of travel experience and interesting stories to tell. You will definitely enjoy spending time with her. Hope to see you often Marie Jose, its really nice to know you!!
 From Oliver Meskawi Rotterdam, Netherlands
Jun 21, 2011  Positive I met Marie-José about a year ago and since then we've met several times for drinks, dinners, parties, etc. She's great company, super friendly and fun! On to more good times!
 From FRASABA Pescara, Italy
May 24, 2011 Positive Maria Josè and Raymon were my guests for one night. I have spent a good time with them and they have been very kind and friendly guests.
It was very nice to meet Maria since she is a smart and a very friendly person who seems to be able to spread very positive energy around with her cheerful mood. I beliece she is the kind of person who makes you feel comfortable in all situations and she is also a very well experienced CS member, which makes her a very reliable and nice person to host or to surf with.
I am sure we will meet again!
 From Froukje Jongsma Rotterdam, Netherlands
Apr 25, 2011 Positive Marie José is one of the most colourful people I know. Her taste in clothes and personality match absolutely perfect :) We got to know each other when we organized the CSinterklaas weekend 2010 together with Hazel and Raymond and had a great time doing this. Besides that we also had lots of fun on several other occasions including the grand opening of the LantarenVenster arthouse cinema (MJ won free tickets and invited me to go with her), our own CS 5-course Christmas dinner which included loads of yummy food and our weekly belly dancing lessons where we try to move as if we’re real Middle Eastern divas ;) Marie José always has a smile on her face, she’s good company and she’s really helpful & responsible. This girl definitely has the CouchSurfing spirit!
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