HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING I'm just getting into CouchSurfing but love the concept behind it. I hope to meet lots of interesting people during my travels and am looking forward to hosting people when I settle. I am also telling all my friends about it! COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE At the moment I have been cycling through countryside and pulling up at people's houses asking whether I can camp in their gardens! This has been a fantastic way to meet local people on my trip although it doesn't work so well in cities... hopefully CouchSurfing will help!

I'm into a broad range of just about everything, as long as it makes me think, but I'll give you a taste. Movies: I've really liked some of the awareness-raising films coming out recently, whether they are sensationalist or not, such as Constant Gardener, Syriana, Inconvenient Truth, Blood Diamond Music: Classical to Rock! Books: At the minute I am catching up on classics and I rarely read modern literature... I get some criticism for this from friends but there are about 5000 years to catch up on before I can start reading recently published books! I usually read a few books at a time and am currently reading Madame Bovary by Flaubert, Ulysses by Joyce and Tender the Night by Scott Fitzgerald as well as Crime and Punishment on my iPod while I'm cycling!