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Overview

  • 17 references 5 Confirmed & Positive
  • Fluent in English, French, Italian, Latin; learning Ancient Greek, Georgian, German, Hebrew (modern)
  • 33, Female
  • Member since 2006
  • writer/theologian
  • the dreaming spires of Oxford
  • From New York City, NY/Rome, Italy/Paris, France
  • Profile 100% complete

About Me

CURRENT MISSION

to write the Great Franco-Italo-American Novel.

ABOUT ME

traveling at the moment so unable to accept guests in Tbilisi until the fall.

I live between Oxford, England, and Tbilisi, Georgia, and hope to be able to participate in CS in both locations.I'm an endearingly eccentric idealist with messy hair and too-tall shoes. I like musty books in dusty libraries, exploring cities on bicycle, theological discussions, cafes, writing the future Great Franco-Italo-American novel, and having Great Adventures. I don't like loud parties or excessive beer consumption (absinthe acceptable). I prefer pensions and guest houses to hostels. I tend to travel alone with a retinue of books for company.I grew up in Paris, Rome, and NYC, went to boarding school in New Hampshire, and now live between Oxford, England, and Tbilisi, Georgia. I'm currently dong a master's degree on the intersection of theology and literature in the 19th century.

PHILOSOPHY

"...Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order strike
the sounding furrows, for my purpose holds
to sail beyond the sunset, and the bath
of all the western stars until I die."
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

As a host, I try to show my guests the beauty of Tbilisi (or Oxford!) - introducing them to Georgian food and wine, the gorgeous Old Town of Tbilisi, and providing traditional "Georgian hospitality!" (in my American way)

As a guest, I am happy to tell stories, ask questions, cook Georgian or Italian meals, play chess, discuss any- and everything, and contribute to lively late-night Deep Conversations.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've hosted in Tbilisi, Vienna and Oxford, surfed in Budapest, Paris and Zagreb, and met up with CSers at various concerts, events, and parties in Vienna, Tbilisi, Paris, and New York. I prefer to meet couchsurfers who are interested in cultural events (seeing a film or play, going to a museum or a low-key cafe) rather than partying/drinking/clubbing.I'm happy to have a few drinks at a cocktail bar or a couple of glasses of wine, but if you want to stay out until 4 am clubbing, smoking pot, and downing shots, you might want to find a far less uncool host!

Interests

writing, directing plays, reading books, chess, bicycling, conversing in cafes, pelerinage, theologizing, sprezzatura, hypothetical art theft, wandering through Europe, eikasia, graphomania, theology, books, theatre, travel, history, tea, opera, Classics, Vienna, patristics, flanerie, guitar

  • arts
  • humanities
  • writing
  • books
  • literature
  • beauty
  • concerts
  • dining
  • cooking
  • wine
  • beer
  • cocktails
  • partying
  • drinking
  • clubbing
  • chess
  • reading
  • traveling
  • blogging
  • guitar
  • opera
  • sailing
  • divinity
  • history
  • languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Favorite Music:
brooding pianists, post-punk, baroque, goth, opera, musicals, folk, chanteuses, jazz standards, Johnny Cash, glam rockers with multiple identities, rock me amadeus

Favorite Movies:
Old Hollywood romances, Before Sunrise, Disney princesses, screwball comedies, Fellini, Almodovar, French movies that make no sense, Orson Welles

Favorite Books:
The Bible, The Alexandria Quartet (Durrell), Women in Love (Lawrence), Return of the Native & Jude the Obscure (Hardy), Gormenghast (Peake), Romola & Daniel Deronda (Eliot), Les Miserables (Hugo), The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky), Journey by Moonlight (Szerb), That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana (Gadda), War and Peace (Tolstoy), Germinal; Nana; L'Assommoir (Zola), What Maisie Knew (James), The Cornish Trilogy (Davies), Memoirs of an Anti-Semite (von Rezzori), Remembrance of Things Past (Proust), Giovanni's Room (Baldwin), Cities of the Interior (Nin), Tropic of Capricorn (Miller), Big Sur & On the Road (Kerouac), The Duchess of Langeais (Balzac), Moby-Dick (Melville), The Aeneid (Virgil), A Confederacy of Dunces (Toole), The Towers of Trebizond (MacAulay), The Leopard (Lampedusa), The House of Mirth (Wharton), Death in Venice & The Magic Mountain (Mann)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

discovering the world's most esoteric English bookshop in a narrow corner of Antalya; surviving a Georgian supra;

Teach, Learn, Share

I know far too many dead languages (Latin, Ancient Greek, learning Hebrew) and obscure facts about popes, Ancient Romans, and theologians. I can tell you funny stories about Photius. I've lived in Rome, Paris, New York, Vienna (briefly), Oxford, and Tbilisi.

I keep a blog here http://perpetualpelerinage.blogspot.com.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Croatia, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, France, Georgia, Italy, United Kingdom, United States

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