CURRENT MISSION

German fluency, let my roots grow a little.

ABOUT ME

I love simple life, interesting people, and fresh fruit and vegetables. I adore my wife. I believe humans are inherently good. The trust I have in my relationship with what I call god (you can call it whatever you want) allows me to live a beautiful and amazing life.

PHILOSOPHY

Live life and love it.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Mostly hosting in a "free hotel room" style for now - usually in exchange for catsitting so my wife and I can get out of town. Honestly, you don't have to worry about a perfectly worded couch request. I care more about the dates, references, and if you like cats.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Couchsurfing helps my faith in humankind. I enjoy immersing myself in cultures different to mine and allowing the experience to change me a little, and couchsurfers help me do this. People who are willing to open their homes and have a conversation with someone new gives me a positive view of who we are as a species, and chances of meeting kindred souls through this site are very high.

Interests

I collect coins: if you surf with us and you are from a country from which I don't have the coins, I would love if you bring some with you. I also enjoy organizing cabinets and closets, figuring out algorithms, writing complex SQL queries, back-end testing and optimization, and riding public transportation in every city. I mix my own e-cigarette liquid, make homemade yogurt, soak/cook my own beans, and eat the same simple foods every day. And I love watching animals and young children in their own little worlds.

• insects
• writing
• interior design
• photography
• gardening
• painting
• poker
• anatomy
• religion
• cultural immersion
• travel
• learning languages
• freediving
• programming
• sun
• maps
• bdsm
• playing pool
• physiology
• wild animals
• home improvement
• vipassana meditation
• macro photography
• swimming in the sea
• book binding
• nesting
• cute animal videos
• everything strange

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Pay It Forward, Crash, American History X, American Beauty, 12 Years a Slave, Fight Club, Léon The Professional, Memento, A Beautiful Mind, Conspirators of Pleasure, Secretary, The Lives of Others, Downfall, The Pianist, The Godfather (and pretty much any mob movie), Apocalypse Now, Snatch, The Martian, It's a Wonderful Life, Metropolis, Casablanca (and many other classics), Princess Mononoke, Ice Age, Madagascar, Finding Nemo, anything starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Kevin Spacey, or Leonardo DiCaprio, anything directed by Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Hayao Miyazaki, or Alfred Hitchcock

TV: Planet Earth, Cosmos, Startup, Dexter, House of Cards, Star Trek (Next Generation), Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, The Walking Dead (and anything with Zombies), Twin Peaks

Music: PJ Harvey, Chopin (esp his mazurkas), Baroque Era (esp Handel), Death in Vegas (and a lot of Krautrock/Psychadelic/Dark Electronica), A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails (esp With Teeth), some David Bowie, The Beatles ('66 and later)

Books: Emotions Revealed, Gift of Fear, Getting Things Done, Momo (auf Deutsch) and pretty much anything else in German that I can mostly understand.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Just one? Oh, no. Many more...

Seeing the beautiful way children are raised by the whole community in a township in South Africa, partying for four days over New Year's Eve in the bush with crazy South Africans, watching the moon rise over the Mediterranean in southern Spain, walking through the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona during a lightning storm at night, road trips through Spain, watching the Northern Lights in Tromsø Norway, tracing my family history and visiting those places - Auschwitz in Poland, Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, Statue of Liberty in New York, figuring out street signs in Russia, the Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd Russia, growing my own vegetables, my job (better left for private conversations), and many more...

Finally feeling somewhat of a connection to an actual place in the world - Berlin.

Teach, Learn, Share

There's probably a youtube video or a wikipedia journey for that.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Sadly I'm not very interesting or sociable, really. I tend to be quiet and more of an observer. But I could organize your kitchen cabinets for you.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Greece, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, South Africa, Spain, United States

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