HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING I always thrive on the insights and exchanges, conversations and outings that I've had through Couchsurfing - and meeting travelers on the road. Spontaneous meetings of the mind. Unexpected shared experiences. What's not to love?! COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE My first two CS experiences were in Moscow; the first was dismal, but the second one was fabulous! I continued in St. Petersburg and enjoyed CS-time in Berlin. Wonderful hosts, interesting conversations, cool neighborhoods and an old-world style (ex-East) Berlin pub I would never have discovered on my own! One of my CS hosts (Singapore, now in Jakarta) remains a friend until today, and each of us has extended our friendship network as a result - including 'sending' her to spend time with family in Israel.

Movies: **Life in a Day**, The Usual Suspects, The Inside Man, Rear Window, 12 Angry Men, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Inherit the Wind, Fiddler on the Roof, Sound of Music, Stalker, Le Professionel (Leon), Das Leben der Anderen (Lives of Others), anything Wenders, Babette's Fesat, Fantasia, documentaries (too many to mention!), NFB animation & claymation films. Hand me a lifetime subscription to the Criterion Collection & I'll be in 7th heaven. Music: James Taylor, Natalie Cole, Jack Johnson, Seal, Morcheeba, Piaf, Dream Academy, The Corrs, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, Debussy's Claire de Lune, George Winston (et al. @ Windham Hill), Gregorian chants, Gavin Bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, Nurit Galron, Shalom Hanoch, underwater sounds. Books: Breakfast with Buddha, Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt (about women travellers), A Fortune-Teller Told Me, Shantaram, Q and A by Vikas Swarup, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, historical fiction, anything by Primo Levi, The Following Story by Cees Nooteboom, The Magic Mountain, Lucky & The Lovely Bones.