CURRENT MISSION

Badass Ballarat Baby

ABOUT ME

Well, I'm like in-your-face harmlessness. Hand shakes are for professional encounters, hugs and cuddles are for strangers and friends. You will have your photo taken with me, if I dont how will I prove it happened? I mean if I can't put the food I'm eating on Instagram how will my friends combat their anxiety?

My play time is all fun, exciting, adventure, enjoying every moment. I like to talk about fun stuff. I like to learn, I like to expand my mind.

Some of my life is extremely serious and challenging. I must balance it out with soul filling fun times in my own free time. That said, I'm sensible, the kinds of risks I take are social, like starting conversations with strangers, I am risky like that. I just wanna go out and make the most of any time I have. I want to live.

I don't like pretense, just honesty. I like real friends who are always there for you. Yeah. And of course, I like travel, and languages!

PHILOSOPHY

For me, fun and happiness are important. You should just be yourself, and find people who want to be around the real you.

I think you need to believe in yourself, to make things happen. To constantly broaden that comfort zone, it's good to challenge yourself. You need to make things happen for you, start today, or tomorrow (if you're too tired, hehe). Use your intiative!

I love being in a make the most of the moment mindset. That's my favourite thing about couchsurfing, even when I'm home, I'm thinking like a traveller, what can I do tonight? Where can I go? I'll stop and talk to strangers, I'll see something, and just not be too embarassed to give it a go. Or, be embarassed and do it anyway!

Dieuwke wanted to do a Free Hugs Campaign, and I was a bit shy at first, but I thought, this is what I wanted to get into couchsurfing for, to be inspired by others, so, we did it, and it was so wonderful. I am so thankful that I met Dieuwke.

That is what it's about, taking a chance. Couchsurfing brings great people together, and makes them want to share in a moment, to get more from life, couchsurfers together can makes things happen, and that is something I love.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

My involvement in Melbourne
I'll take you around Melbourne, or show you how to get places, or where is good and where isn't so good, but of course, all in my humble opinion.

Additionally, I'm always happy to meet more couchsurfers in neighbouring areas to Melbourne, such as Canberra, Sydney, Hobart and Adelaide, this way, I can personally recommend another couchsurfing host to travellers who are travelling through Melbourne to the next place, once again, improving out network and enhancing the safety of everyone. If you are a couchsurfer from another place in Australia, I'd love to meet you, so we can build this network together.

I value safety with travellers highly. I will do all I can to help establish trust, but I feel that surfers need to do the same for me. I am an honest person and I expect the same back.

Upon meeting you I am more than happy to show you my license or passport, but I feel that you need to be willing to do the same.

I also respect everyone's space. I try to set up my couchsurfing location as best as I can to give you all the space, comfort and privacy that I can. Basically no matter what time it is you go to sleep, you will have that entire area to yourself. I will not disturb you. That is your space, you can sleep, get changed, or dance around naked, it's really not my concern, however, if there are other couchsurfers staying in the same room, they may be very very concerned.

I have some simple rules.
There will be no racism or any other kind of discrimination and drugs are for other times away from my house thanks.

It's simple and clear and I won't put up with it. Enough said. Now smile please, we can have fun again.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

This section used to be filled with every single Couchsurfer I had met and it just became too much to fill in and keep up to date. I have hosted more than I've been hosted, and travelled a bit with lots of different people. I've also been to lots of meetings in Melbourne.

I have often run Penguins Tours where I take Couchsurfers to see penguins and teach people about them.

I am have run swimming meetings, bike tours, book swap meetings and chess club meetings in cafes around Melbourne.

I host low key mature events that focus more on interests and activities than alcohol and partying.

Interests

I love cycling, swimming, nature, hiking, camping, going for coffee, seeing live music. I love restaurants and doing new things. I like cool bars, good coffee, going to the beach, surfing (and no, I'm not good at it, and why should that matter?). I'm like weight training (I pick things up, and I put them down).

• books
• dancing
• dining
• coffee
• vegetarian
• chess
• traveling
• music
• live music
• piano
• outdoor activities
• cycling
• hiking
• camping
• swimming
• languages
• tours
• sightseeing
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

I like all movies except for horror and bad tacky comedies. I don't understand that genre, seriously, if I want to scare myself I can just call up an expartner and invite her over for dinner.

Generally speaking I'm a cultural snob so if the movie isn't somewhat high brow I won't be interested. I like going to Monday night movies at Kino and Tuesday night movies at Nova, the open air cinema at the Botanical Gardens and $1 DVDs on Tuesdays. While I may look unsophisticated, nevertheless that Arts degree with a minor in literature influenced my tastes, hence I watch intelligent movies.

I used to read mostly non-fiction. Then Little Red Riding hood showed me a world of stories I was missing: Fiction. I read at least one fiction book all the time now. I like spy books, biographies, and books with lots of imagination.

I'm a musician, so once again, I like high brow music too. I'm a classical pianist, so that makes it even worse. I love Rock, Funk, Jazz, Soul, really heavy stuff to Frank Sinatra. If it isn't complicated or doesn't show great musicianship, I won't be interested. If it does, I'll want to know how to do it.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Travelling for 9.5 months around the world with my wife. Not much can top that.

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach. I can teach you:
How to make strange vegetarian food, Tofu Tempeh and Lentils, they can all go together!
How to make good italiano style coffee.
How to do massage, but I won't be giving you a free massage!
How to swim.
Piano.
English.
Bike Riding.
Surfing, but I'm not very good at it.
Penguin Tours.
Chess.
Weight Training.
Karate and Taekwondo

Share. We can share:
Camping, hiking, and doing things outdoors.
Dreadlock maintenance, come over and we can work on each other's hair.
Italiano.
Photography. There are no camera-shy people around me, too bad, get used to it.
Sightseeing, thinking, wow, this place is awesome.

Learn. You can teach me:
Swedish, Spanish, French and Nederlands.
Swing dance.
Singing.
Yoga.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Usually, when I am staying with someone I insist on making them some food or taking them out somewhere. If there is something I know that they're interested in I am always happy to share.

I like to make people feel valued and do something nice in return for them heloing me.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bhutan, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Russian Federation, Samoa, South Korea, Spain, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Sweden, United States, Uzbekistan

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia

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