CURRENT MISSION

to live a relaxed life without too many worries

ABOUT ME

Hi everybody,
I've been living in Cardiff for half a year now, and recently bought a house with a spare bedroom. In daily life I'm working as a lecturer at Cardiff University. Before arriving in Wales, I was working in Scotland, as a researcher (postdoc) at the University of Aberdeen. Before this, I was working in Luxembourg for 5 years, and in Utrecht for 3 years. It has been an opportunity to pick up some languages; apart from my native language (Dutch), I speak English, German and some French as foreign languages.

Much of my life so far I've spent sharing apartments, and I sort of got used to it. Even now that I bought a place of my own, I'm sometimes renting out the guest bedroom for a couple of weeks, when there's no friends or relatives visiting, but it would also be nice to make it available for couch surfing for a few nights.

Por qué estoy en Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've got a guest bedroom available with a single bed. Sometimes it's occupied, but the couch surfers can sleep in the living room.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

A former flatmate in Luxembourg once suggested to start hosting couchsurfers, but it wasn't before moving to Aberdeen when I started to host the first surfers. Basically, I'd like to ask surfers:
- to arrive no later than 9pm (preferably earlier)
- to have a cellphone number they can be reached on
- to try to fit into the schedule of someone with a day-time job when it comes to arriving and departing

Intereses

Hiking, cycling and enjoying a real ale at one of Cardiff's many pubs (I'm member of the Campaign for Real Ale).

• pub crawls
• cycling
• hiking
• languages

Música, películas y libros

Whenever I'm back on the Continent, I usually try to visit a book shop to see if there's anything interesting. In fact, my bookshelves are filled with books in 3 different languages. I also like to read the Financial Times and Handelsblatt, and regard finance as some kind of spectator sport.

As for music, I grew up during the 80s and 90s, and still remember all the good, bad and sometimes even silly stuff that people were listening to. One of the disadvantages of living in the UK is that there are very few foreign language films in the cinema, so I got myself a special satellite dish to receive TV from the Continent.

Algo increíble que he hecho

I once went to Japan and back, without airplane. It took me 5 months in total, using a combination of trains, buses, (shared) taxis and even a cargo ship. If people are interested, I can tell how to get yourself as a passenger on a container ship, and have meals with the officers every day.

Países que he visitado

Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Laos, Latvia, Macao, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States, Viet Nam, Wales

Países en los que he vivido

Luxembourg, Netherlands, Scotland, Wales