CURRENT MISSION

A life torn between two countries...

ABOUT ME

Hi, people of the world!

I'm a 24-year-old expatriate trying to find my place in the world. After several restless periods in Brussels, Berlin, Minsk, London and a summer of Mediterranean debauchery in Barcelona, I've landed in Luxembourg to settle down my head for 5 months and complete my traineeship at the European Commission. I'm one of those so-called frontaliers that live between two countries, since I commute everyday to my job in Luxembourg from Saarbrücken, in Germany, where I actually live.

I consider myself an unconventional lad, with too much energy to contain in just one body, full of different interests and willing to try new things. Like one of my favourite singers ever, Björk, once said in her song "Wanderlust", "I feel at home whenever the unknown surrounds me". It seems I still haven't been able to stick around quite long enough!

These are just some of my favourite things:
- Music, music and more music!
- The sound of piano and violin
- Rain. A kiss under the rain.
- Snowy parks (Slottkogen in Göteborg, Sweden, covered in snow is one of my favourites^^)
- Blue eyes
- Sleeping in the arms of somebody
- Raspberries. And strawberries. With champagne.
- Dancing. Ballet. Ballet clothing^^
- Figure skating
- Theatre and drama.
- Breakfast cereal
- The sound of a tuning fork
- Dark chocolate
- Foreign languages
- The sound of an orchestra tuning up
- H&M & Primark (guilty pleasures...)
- My second-hand bike (well, that was till I crashed it into a rock... serves me well for cycling at night with no lights. T_T)
- An afternoon in a cosy coffee talking with a close friend about all and nothing

PHILOSOPHY

My personal philosophy takes a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but mainly feeds upon the Carpe Diem philosophy. I simply try to live my life freely, enjoy my freedom and let the others do the same.

I'm a radical anti-nominalist. I think this society has a pathological need to put a label on everything. Labels are usually, even dangerous. We could live without them. Just one example: why do we need to classify people in white, black, women, men, gays, straight... We're just humans, and that's OK!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Trying to bring some colour to the whole map. And helping other CouchSurfers to do the same.

Napoleon's Syndrome

Map Legend: 10%, 28 of 263 Territories
Visited Lived in Maroon

Napoleon's Syndrome
© worldmapmaker.com | Travel Insurance

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

So far I've surfed more than hosted. I hope this will gradually change.

My CS History:

I've surfed
Nov 2010 - Sigmund Evesen and Kjersti Djupvik in Oslo
Jan 2011 - Andreas Lärfors and Julien Evans in Stockholm
Jul 2012 - Elena Skorokhod and Oksana Kazachyok in Minsk
Sep 2012 - Hannah Darville in London
Feb 2013 - Dmytro & Masha in Kiev
Feb 2013 - Natalia Kovzik in Minsk
Feb 2013 - Ieva Speteliunaite

Interests

All the artsy stuff. I absolutely adore performing arts, i.e. drama, theatre and dancing. I consider Russian ballet as one of the epitomes of beauty. I myself have taken up a couple amateur lessons of ballet only to regret that I didn't start before...

I also love music in almost all its forms and I can play piano to a very basic level. I sing too, and in fact I wouldn't mind to start doing it professionally.

I consider myself more of a museums-theatre-parks-restaurant-bar crawl-cuddle-in-bed kind of city-hiker than a clubbing soul, but I'm in for the odd crazy night in a good club when the mood strikes. I have a hard time bearing with heteronormative clubs though. Some of my favourite clubs in Europe include Heaven (London), Kit-Kat-Club, Berghain and Monster Ronsons (Berlin) and Le Boys Boudoir (Brussels).

• arts
• books
• singing
• performing arts
• beauty
• dancing
• ballet dancing
• cooking
• breakfast
• chocolate
• coffee
• walking
• clubbing
• clothing
• traveling
• music
• piano
• violin
• cycling
• hiking
• history
• languages
• parks

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: I like it varied and eclectic, from different countries and in different languages. I tend to like music from UK, Ireland, Sweden, Iceland, Russia and the Balkans. I also love classical music, specially from the Romanticism. And I follow the Eurovision Song Contest very closely year by year, there are really good songs waiting to be discovered.
To name a few artists whom I consider important in my life: The Cranberries, Dolores O'Riordan, The Chieftains, Enya, Björk, Loreena McKennitt, Dido, Mike Oldfield, Noa, Sigur Rós, Aneta Langerová, Bye Bye Bicycle, Regina Spektor, Edith Piaf, Alla Pugacheva... Some classic composers: L. van Beethoven, B. Smetana, A. Dvořak, E. Grieg, W.A. Mozart, A. Borodin, P.I. Tchaikovsky, M. Moussorgsky, N. Rimsky-Korsakov.

My favourite movies: Amélie, V for Vendetta, Corpse Bride, Love Actually, Kenneth Branagh's "The Magic Flute", Fantasia... And yes, I love Disney's films^^

Some of my favourite books: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (M. Kundera), The Portrait of Dorian Gray (O. Wilde), Paroles (J. Prevert), 'The curious incident of the dog at the night time' and 'A spot of bother' (M. Haddon), Evgeniy Onegin (A. Pushkin), The Harry Potter series (JK Rowling)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Watching the dawn breaking in the Soviet Memorial at Treptower Park in Berlin. Carrying my couch on foot on a stolen trolley 4.5 km till my house in Berlin. Interpreting live at the UN in Vienna. Interviewing the Spanish translators of the Harry Potter books. Walking through a deserted Venice under the rain... More to come.

Teach, Learn, Share

I'd rather people meet me and discover by themselves what I have to offer. If I was to list some things... Well, I'm not that bad at languages, and I'm all for language practice every now and then, so I may be of any help in that domain. Also I'm something of a good cook, from me you may learn to cook from Korean Mandu dumplings to Belarussian Draniki (although my lovely Couch-surfers and Minsk flatmates Elena and Oksana deserve the credit for the latter!).

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belarus, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom

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