To learn about other cultures more intimately through shared experiences with locals, and to offer the same to foreigners in my country/ country of residence.

Love music, movies and books across genres so not sure where to start - listing top of the mind 3 or 4 in each category I ve loved. Books/ authors - Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Antoine de st exupery, Camus, Herman Hesse, Nikos kanzantzakis, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Rabindranath Tagore, Amitav Ghosh. Music - Jazz, Classical music; classic rock - Queen, Beatles, The who, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Dylan, Leonard cohen; Simon and Garfunkel. Popular music - Adele, Enya, Lorena mckennitt, Coldplay. Movies - love world cinema across countries - favourite directors are the usual suspects - kurusowa, Bergman, Majid Majidi, Fellini, Bertolucci, Truffaut, Pedro almodovar, Zhang Yimou, Satyajit Ray et al. English movies - David Lean, Orson Welles, Alexander Korda, merchant ivory productions, George Cukor, Scorcese, Coen brothers, Christopher Nolan, Spielberg, Tarantino, Wes anderson, Charlie Chaplin et al. some lesser known gems that I ve loved - French - Blame it on Fidel; Popular mainstream - love a well-done rom com like “you’ve got mail”, the devil wears Prada/ or fantasy like Lord of the rings/ or action like western/ Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns/ lock stock & 2 smoking barrels/ Layer cake