CURRENT MISSION

Make the most of my time in The Hague, travel around

ABOUT ME

Hi everybody!! My name is Paco, a Spanish guy who once started a trip all over South America after been living in United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and of course Spain.

I spent a year living in Buenos Aires and another 8 months travelling through every single country in that continent appart from the guayanas.

Then I run out of money and had to come back to some serious working life in Europe and.... that happened to be Gibraltar, a weird place in the very South of Spain, half English, half Spanish.

I stayed in The Rock for a year after which time I rellocated to The Hague, Netherlands, my eight country so far. I am meant to be here for at least one year and so far the experience is been amazing.

The Hague is a very comfortable place to live, not too big, not too small and surrounded by other interesting towns such as Leiden, Rotterdam, Delft or Amsterdam. Dutch people are fiendly and easy-going and beer is quite decent...

About me, all the usual CS blablaba. I am a social person and love to travel and to meet different people. I used to be a hardcore party guy but age is taking its toll. Still I can drink a fair ammount of beer and/or rum-coke if the moment requires it :)

I play basketball (could not find anywhere to do it here yet), chess (out of practice) and enjoy scuba-diving (difficult now that I live in Holland) and trekking (same thing, no mountains in this country...)

There are a few guidelines for asking for a couch that you should consider when writing to me. I guess what I am going to say is nothing strange, most of the real couchsurfers out there ask for the same. If you dont follow them you will be reading this as a response to your request and hopefully next time you will write a better (or more CS friendly) one :)

* Copy&paste messages are not good. Specially those ones starting with something like "hi there". If you dont even write my name in the request that means you didnt bother to read my profile and that means I wont bother to answer. No hard feelings but I get a lot of requests and I need to select somehow.

* Messages with the "I need a couch because I have no money for a hotel" style are not good either. I dont like EXTREMELY low-cost travellers. Dont missunderstand me. Couchsurfing is a great way to save money but that is not the key thing. I dont expect a backpacker (I have been one myself for months) to go having dinner in a five starts restaurant but having a few beers or "tapas" should always be an option. And, in fact, this is what I believe the whole thing is about. Not just having free accommodation but also socialize.

All right, that is pretty much everything, feel free to ask and welcome to my house! :)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Well, I was more active in hospitalityclub when I was living in Madrid but I started to use CS in my trip and it worked out really well. It is a great way to meet not only local people but also other travellers!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have used both Hospitalityclub and CouchSurfing for hosting and for travelling and it was always an amazing experience. It really makes a difference to get in touch with locals when you are visiting a place :)

Interests

Travel of course, basketball, chess, music, cinema, partying, diving.

• writing
• oktoberfest
• beer
• running
• partying
• drinking
• movies
• chess
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• music
• backpacking
• scuba diving
• basketball
• mountains

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I walked over the Great Wall near Beijing.

I watched the Beijing Olympic (2008) Games basketball semifinal live in the stadium (Spain made it to the final)

I saw the Keops, Kefrén and Micerinos pyramids close to El Cairo, Egypt.

I climbed the way to Machu Picchu, Cuzco, Perú starting at 3am in the morning just to get there and see sunrise in the place before the crowds would arrive.

I walked over a glacier in Torres del Paine, chilean Patagonia.

I drinked a glass of rum with ice cubes I took from the Perito Moreno glacier in argentinian Patagonia.

I reached the Lost City in Santa Marta, Colombia, after three days of trekking in the jungle.

I climbed Huayna Potosi, a 6088 meters high mountain close to La Paz.

I did scuba diving in a 80 meters deep lake at the bottom of a cave.
http://www.abismoanhumas.com.br

I did scuba diving inside a Tupolev-154 plane in Varna, Bulgaria.
http://www.gadling.com/2011/05/27/dive-communist-plane-off-the-coast-of-bulgaria/

I did scuba diving surrounded by sea lions in Puerto Madryn, argentinian Patagonia.

I cruised the Amazon river for three days from Santarem to Belem (Brazil).

I was in the Rio de Janeiro Carnival.

I saw the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia under a full moon.

I have been 5 times (and counting) in the Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany.

I saw La Alhambra, in Granada, Spain.

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