CURRENT MISSION

Keep my inner child alive. See as many places and meet as many new people as I can while I'm alive. Do at least some small thing before I die to make the world more united and equitable and therefore a better place.

ABOUT ME

OK,OK. We're getting old. But we're holding up fairly well for old fogies and in the past, have enjoyed having 14 teenagers from all over the world live with us for from 3 months to a year (temporary and permanent exhange students and friends). Most of them were with us the full year.
Axel was born and raised in Germany and I've always loved travel, especially to foreign nations. Most recently, we've been going to more exotic and primitive locations and love it! We are very active seniors (still hard to think of ourselves that way) with many interests. Now we live to plan our next trip!

PHILOSOPHY

Don't dwell on things you can't control, no matter how they upset or annoy you. Instead, put that energy into changing the things you can influence. Learn and explore throughout your life. Never say never. Be open to trying new and exotic experiences in all aspects of your life. As Helen Keller said, "Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing!" And most importantly, be kind and respectful of people's differences. Kindness, empathy, and generosity are my three highest values.

Perché sono iscritto su Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We have a nice big house in the Oakland hills. We'd like to share our couches and beds and sleep on other people's around the globe.

We have stayed for a week on a couch in Mexico City and had a great time. We've also had several couchsurfers stay with us, and made some new friends.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

As stated, we've had teenagers from around the globe living with us on a regular basis. I think we're too old for teens anymore, but we've slept on many of their and their parents couches over the years and have developed some fast friendships. We have a reputation among friends and co-workers for being the ones who are always entertaining foreigners at our house and have loved
every minute of it.We are famous for our desert trips to Death Valley, where we know some beautiful and out of the way spots to wild camp.

Interessi

Travel (of course), politics (we are left of "liberal"),skiing, being in nature, photography, water sports, the arts, movies, music (for me mostly classical and jazz, for Axel, blues and early R&R), good eating, meeting new people, making new friends, and getting to know new cultures.

• arts
• photography
• politics
• movies
• traveling
• music
• jazz
• blues
• camping
• skiing
• sports
• sign language
• mountains

Musica, film e libri

I love movies and will even go see a bad one if it has a great performance in it. DVDs are nice, but definitely a distant second to movies. I belong to a book club, which forces me to read at least one book a month. Some of my favorite all-time movies are Schindler's List, The Princess Bride, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Glory. My taste in movies is eclectic, but leans toward the Indies and foreign films

Una cosa incredibile che ho fatto

Stayed in the homes of extremely poor villagers in the northeast Highlands of Vietnam. In Namibia, we picked up bare breasted, ochre and butterfat covered hithhikers and shared lunch with them. On the Karakorum Highway (silk road, China), we stopped at a tiny village of yak herders. Through sign language and gestures, we befriended the villagers as best we could. One of the old women told me she liked my earrings, so I took them off and gave them to her. Look for a picture of her wearing them!

Insegna, impara, condividi

We have a wealth of knowledge about our part of the world which we'd love to share with you.

Although one individual may not be able to save the world by him/herself, we can each improve the world for at least one person with acts of kindness and generosity.

Paesi che ho visitato

Austria, Belize, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Laos, Mali, Mexico, Monaco, Myanmar, Namibia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Viet Nam, Zambia

Paesi in cui ho vissuto

Germany, United States

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