CURRENT MISSION

Grow a beard. Circle the world in a paper canoe. Brush my teeth with gasoline. Sleep all day and climb trees at night. Be a monk and drink buckshot and beer.

ABOUT ME

A dreamer with a lust for life, always ready for adventure, eager to get onto the train, perpetually torn between love and destruction, terribly excited about life. Although I'm not your typical tree hugging guy, I'm a nature child. Of course I had to move to the city to find out. I'm trying to simplify my life, but it's hard to get over my internet addiction.

Not a born social butterfly (although I'm getting better) but I love meeting new people, sharing old memories and creating new ones. I like hitting the bars, especially the ones that have character, and tend to forget about the time whilst drinking, chattering about life and love and dancing. But I can enjoy a good book or a quiet game of chess or tavla just as much. After all, "life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings, about fire in our bellies and about furtive little feelings."

Travel is what makes my heart race. Solely thinking about the marvels of the road gives me a rush of energy, travels are always a source of inspiration. I enjoy hiking, cycling, kayaking, camping and playing squash, and you can always challenge me for a game of pool. I have a passion for the written word, enjoy watching football (FC Bruges Till I Die!), eating and drinking, savouring new flavours, going on small and bigger adventures.

PHILOSOPHY

Never lose your sense of wonder.

If you've lost your faith in love and music, oh, the end won't be long.

To hell with poverty! We'll get drunk on cheap wine!

Live,
travel,
adventure,
bless,
and don't be sorry.

Interests

• cats
• writing
• books
• dancing
• cooking
• beer
• nightlife
• drinking
• chess
• reading
• music
• live music
• cycling
• hiking
• camping
• mountaineering
• surfing
• history
• journalism
• philosophy
• hitchhiking
• travel
• food
• nature
• football
• sleeping
• vegetarianism
• vinyl
• stars
• getting lost
• dreams
• alcohol
• indonesia
• imagination
• mixtapes
• beat generation
• counterculture
• big city life
• fc bruges
• southampton fc
• handwritten letters
• melancholy
• the open road

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: mostly indie, rock and folk with hints of electronic, hiphop and pop. The angry young man inside of me needs his dose of punk every now and then. Frank Turner, Beach House, Dan Mangan, Refused, Eels, The Raveonettes, The Smiths, Belle and Sebastian, St. Vincent, Cat Power, Feist, Sufjan Stevens, Bloc Party, The Raveonettes, Arcade Fire, Laura Marling, Slow Club, M.I.A., Coeur de Pirate, Kendrick Lamar, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, CCR, Frank Ocean, The Long Blondes, Guillemots, Los Campesinos!, Joanna Newsom, The White Stripes, Rihanna, Jens Lekman, etc. This list is definitely the most endless of them all. More: http://www.last.fm/user/Tommasi

Movies: the only way I can watch movies without being distracted all the time is in the cinema (preferably the late night showing). That being said, I generally - but definitely not exclusively - prefer more independent movies over blockbusters. Richard Linklater, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Donnie Darko, Lost in Translation, Apocalypse Now, Chat Noir/Chat Blanc, Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind, The Pianist, The Lion King, Where the Wild Things Are, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, High Fidelity, (500) Days of Summer, Cidade De Deus, Into The Wild, etc.

Books: beat generation and related literature (mostly Kerouac and Bukowski), Belgian comics (Tintin is such a hero), Vonnegut, Russian classics (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Bulgakov), Robbins!, Steinbeck, Kundera, Nabokov, H.S. Thompson, Marquez, Thoreau, Wilde, Dumas (The Three Musketeers!), Plath, some more contemporary authors (Hornby, Ellis, Foer, Saramago, Murakami), non-fiction (history, nature, science, mountaineering, adventure, travel stories and stuff by Kapuscinski, Macfarlane, Krakauer, Bouvier and Bryson).

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've seen many beautiful sunsets and sunrises in the company of the beautiful people I call my friends, I’ve fallen in love on top of the most active volcano in the world, I’ve been chased on a motorbike by a drugged-up madman with a knife, I’ve been asked to become manager of a paradise island resort, I've smuggled yummy Armenian cognac into Iran, I surfed the waves near Thurso, Britain's northernmost town, I've walked around the ghost town of Pripyat, near Chernobyl, I've interviewed Rihanna and Florence Welsh amongst others and got complimented on my questions by the master Louis Theroux, I've partied like a celebrity in Brazilian clubs and during Burmese water festival, I've hitchhiked to 10 countries in 10 days with 10 euro, I've written poetry behind hotel room paintings, I've shot guns and I've seen FC Bruges beat Dortmund.

That was more than One Amazing Thing I’ve Done. Guess I got a little bit too excited.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can try to explain the complex thing called Belgium (emphasis on try), teach you how to survive with a very limited budget in Asia and share my humble meals with you (and maybe a beer?)

My girlfriend and I are both writers and we are happy to help you with your writing or beta-read some of your stuff.

As a journalist and a writer, I believe I can learn from anyone's personal story. So bring it on!

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kosovo, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Myanmar, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Indonesia, United Kingdom

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