CURRENT MISSION

Learn as much about the world as I can!

ABOUT ME

I'm me. If you want to know more, read some of my profile. Or, even better, come visit me when I have a couch free or host me when I'm travelling!!!!

PHILOSOPHY

Hmmm... Tough question. My personal philosophy is that there's probably no god or afterlife, so quit worrying and focus your energy on enjoying your time here on earth and helping others to do the same!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

How do I participate? Well, I go couchsurfing, host when it's possible, meet up with CS groups, and organise CS events whereever I'm living.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've surfed with and hosted many CSers, as well as attended lots of great events. I'm very glad that I found this site - it's a credit to the internet and the underlying good nature of people around the world. Every single experience so far has been great, and that's completely aside from the many lifelong friendships that I have made!

Here's a few of my CS experiences that really stood out:
Attending an annual Native American Ceremony in a roundhouse/tee-pee settlement in the middle of Yosemite National park, California.
Getting a guided tour by one of the curators of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and museum, Glasgow - after the museum closed and we had the place to ourselves.

Interests

Travelling, playing guitar, reading, listening to music, diving, drinking, learning new things, surfing, wandering around the ruins of ancient civilisations in awe (so far, some of the major ones I've visited are Maya, Angkar, Inca, Egyptian, Roman & Nazca), meditation, cooking, etc... Other than that, generally a lot of things that many people would consider crazy, stupid, or boring.

Above all - learning new things is what interests me. Whether it's information, a new skill/talent/ability, language, cultural - anything new I'll be interested! In fact, I run a blog about this. You can find it here:

Paul Raftery's Something New

By the way, Berkeley is a busy city for Couchsurfing (I get many requests per day!) so if you want me to respond positively to your CouchSurfing request, it'd be great if you could either tell me a joke (the stupider the better!) or put "The city of the stony river" somewhere in the request. That way I'll know you've actually taken the time to read my profile. :) Incidentally, that's what the name of the city I used to live in in Ireland (Galway) translates into English from the Irish name "Cathair na Gaillimhe".

• arts
• cooking
• running
• meditation
• drinking
• reading
• traveling
• blogging
• music
• guitar
• surfing
• scuba diving

Music, Movies, and Books

Books/Authors: A wide range - George Orwell, Hunter S. Thompson, Arthur C Clarke, Henry Charriere, John Le Carre, Aldous Huxley, Raymond E Feist, Ayn Rand, David Mitchell, George R Martin,, but I'll give almost anything a try (except total trash - e.g. romance novels, run-of-the-mill thrillers/horror etc). At the moment, my favourite book would have to be 1984 by George Orwell, followed in close second by Papillon by Henri Charriere.

Films: Way too many to even begin to write them all down here :)

Music: blues, rock from the 60's & 70's, psychedelic rock, Pink Floyd (I figure they deserve a category of their own), classical, etc.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I climbed a 20,000ft mountain in Bolivia in 2007. The words 'emotional roller-coaster' don't begin to describe the experience...

visited 48 states (21.3%)Create your own visited map of The World or jurisdische vertaling duits?

Teach, Learn, Share

Anyone with different life experiences/skills/knowledge/talents than me.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Ireland, Russian Federation, Ukraine, United States

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