CURRENT MISSION

to learn about the people behind the culture...and to make people realize that not all Americans like Bush!

ABOUT ME

I'm a student studying architecture in Rome currently. I was born in Nashville, Tennessee (yes yes country music, Dolly Parton, and Elvis) and I have been attending the University of Miami in (Miami) Florida since 2003 and I graduate in May of 2008. Despite what geographical technicalities might suggest, Miami is NOT the United States of America. It is South America/the Carribbean. I love it because of this. I have learned so incredibly much from living in Miami and it made me realize how much I truly enjoy absorbing other cultures and using that to better my own life.

PHILOSOPHY

I've realized through personal experiences that there is something fascinating going on around you all of the time, and when you realize this, it changes your perspective on life.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm just starting, so I want to give back as much as possible to my host and help them learn from me as much as I will learn from them.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

This is my first time "officially" couchsurfing. The closest I've come to this is meeting a great friend from Australia who moved to London. We met only a few times in Rome and kept in touch via email ever since and upon my recent visit to London I stayed with him and there is truly nothing more valuable when visiting a new place than to meet and learn from the local culture (hence my new registration with this organization)

Interests

architecture, music, playing the piano, denying that I ever played the flute, watching people on subway trains, exhausting myself on adding friends to my newly created myspace profile although I swore that I would never create one, becoming obsessed with cultures besides my own and trying to adopt their ways and blend in as much as possible,

• arts
• culture
• architecture
• design
• dancing
• music
• country music
• piano

Music, Movies, and Books

anything that makes me change my ideals.

Movies: Twentynine Palms, Robinson in Space, The Inheritance/De Erfenis, and various home videos of bar mitzvahs.

Music: I tend to stray away from Top 40 type of music although I don't discriminate. I just don't like any category that Paris Hilton can make it into. I'm into everything from Architecture in Helsinki to Sigur Ros to Mirah to Badly Drawn Boy to Miss Kittin to Miles Davis to Patrick Wolf to Manu Chao...

Books: at the moment, anything by David Sedaris and my Italian phrasebook

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Stood above the clouds on the top of the island of Capri, Italy.

Saw a large truck squeeze through a tiny alley in Rome and become stuck, have an Italian stop him, tell him he needs to move or he'll hit a car, then one by one, more people engage in this and eventually 14 Italians from all over stopped what they were doing and were telling this truck driver how to turn the corner.

Watching my friend's 82 year old grandmother dance to hip hop at the end of a wedding reception.

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach: I'm afraid to claim that I'm so good at something that I am eligible to teach it, but I tend to float well in the art+design world so anything that deals with creativity...

Learn: anything about another culture. I'm fascinated even at how different cultures view lemonade. it's not carbonated in the U.S. but everywhere else, it is...