About Me

I don't have a secret password or code 🤫 hidden in my profile, so there is no "homework" 📝 involved in sending me a request. But if you want to increase your chances of getting hosted, you can mention in your request if you'd be willing to help me with learning and playing a board game from my collection of some 550 board games 🎲 (here's the list https://t.ly/YCUOt).

Also, I don't expect any gifts or souvenirs 🎁, but if you really want to bring something (because some guests do), then I do love dark chocolate 🍫:)

Some additional things to consider:

- If you want to get hosted with a friend, he or she also needs to have a CS profile (and the more complete, the better) 🧑‍🤝‍🧑. As this is my home, I need to know who else is coming.

- If my fridge is full of food 🍔🍕, you are free to take some of it as long as you always leave the last piece of each thing for me (so please don't eat that last slice of pizza even if there is other food in the fridge:). If my fridge is empty, please bring your own food 🛒. I don't expect you to cook a meal 🍳, though you can if you want to.

- Please don't smell bad 👃. Usually not a problem with girls but some guys seem to have no idea how badly they smell. I know things can be hard on the road, but at the very least you should find the time for basic hygiene 🚿 and changing/washing clothes every once in a while, no matter what else is going on. Also a strong smell of cheap deodorant or tobacco 🚬 is really not the best either.

I had constant login and technical difficulties with my old verified profile 😫, so had to create a new one (even contacted CS support about it but they are still "working on it" 🕰️). Most things here are copied from there but I also added screenshots from the old profile under photos if you want to check it out. Here's some more info from the old profile:

CURRENT MISSION

Separate the unimportant from the important, then start doing the important in order of importance. 🎯

ABOUT ME

Passionate about getting organized 📂, becoming disciplined 💪, life-long learning 🧠 and improving myself in every aspect in order to be all I can be.

PHILOSOPHY

- It matters not if you win or lose. What matters is if I win or lose. 😉

- My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I'm right. 😎

- Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. 🤫

- The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying to those of us who do. 🧐

Those are my principles. If you don't like them - I have others. 😂

I am a lawyer by training ⚖️ (have worked at a local law firm and most recently as a legal counselor for applicants of international protection and asylum with the Estonian Police) but consider myself more of a generalist than a specialist in any specific field or better yet, an aspiring polymath 👨‍🔬 (a specialist in at least three different fields). I often work as a photographer 📸 (I am an event and press photographer with a local media company). I've also started a few websites 💻, written a book 📖, been a teacher 👨‍🏫, done public speaking 🎤, been in a Hollywood movie 🎬, acted onstage at the "Estonia" National Opera 🎭, traveled to a few dozen countries 🌍 (mostly couchsurfing), done travel vlogging on Youtube 📹 (some my more popular videos have a few million views), been a local guide on Google Maps 🗺️ (my travel photos there have over 3 million views), love to play and collect boardgames 🎲, love watching movies 🎥 (I've rated close to 2000 movies on IMDB), love regular and virtual reality 3D photography and 3D movies 🕶️ (I take 3D pictures and have a 3D home cinema), collect Nerf guns (I have a few hundred and organize Nerf battles for companies and at parties etc) 🔫, have worked as a volunteer for Syrian and Ukrainian refugees at refugee centers and currently working as a volunteer for a startup fighting food wastage 🌱 (we collect expiring food from shops, saving it from being sent to the garbage dump and redistributing it via a smartphone accessible high-tech fridge in the city center).

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I believe an integral part of travel is meeting the people who actually live in the destinations in their everyday environment 🏡 - and there's no better way to meet locals in their homes than couchsurfing. For the host it also gives an experience similar to travel, as it brings them guests from all around the world 🌎, connects people from different backgrounds and cultures and thus advances understanding between people. 🤝

Interests

• books
• photography
• music festivals
• fitness
• working out
• technology
• movies
• board games
• traveling
• music
• cycling
• hiking
• law
• travel
• travelling
• friends
• health
• edm
• healthy lifestyle
• computers
• boardgames
• software development
• trance

Music, Movies, and Books

I love large format coffee table books 📚 about art 🎨, history 🏛️, evolution 🐒, paleontology 🦖, cosmology 🌌, photography 📷, design ✍️, anatomy 💀, movies 🎬, 3D popups, technology 💻, computers 🖥️, popular science 🧪 etc. Here's a link to a list of books in my mini-library - https://t.ly/5Fbn8 - but these days I prefer scanned and OCR'ed PDF books, which I can listen to using text-to-speech 🎧 and I'm in the process of converting my paper-based library to PDF files so I can take it with me anywhere. As you can probably see from the list, I only read non-fiction (the 3D popups books in my library are mostly fiction, but I just look at the pretty popups 👀). For fiction, I prefer movies, which brings us to the next point.

I am also a huge move fan 🍿. I have rated over 2000 movies on IMDB and here's the list - https://t.ly/8tM5P - with my favourite movies (rated 10/10) at the very top of the list. ⭐

For music, 99% of the time I listen to modern symphonic movie scores 🎼 (mostly when working) or occasionally electronic / EDM club and dance 🎧. Day-to-day I don't listen to music at all, because during the times most people listen to music (while doing their chores, driving a car 🚗, working out etc), I listen to books from my library which I have turned into audiobooks using scanning and OCR. This way I actually get to read them anytime I am away from the desk without actually having to sit down and read them (which nobody has time for ⏳).

I really don't watch TV 📺 these days, but when I still did, I preferred documentaries and news from CNN, Discovery, Horizon and Nova. I stopped watching TV series before the advent of streaming (so I have never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad or any of the Disney+ / Netflix series), but I have seen every episode of Sex and The City 👠, Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister and Jeeves and Wooster. I also used to like reality TV but mostly preferred business-related shows likes Dragon's Den, The Apprentice (when Trump was still a harmless character on TV) and The Apprentice UK, also the travel-related The Amazing Race 🏃 and the fashion and photography related America's Next Top Model. 💃

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Spent a night in a Jordanian desert in a bedouin tent ⛺. Went skinny dipping with other couchsurfers in a hot spring in Iceland, in the middle of a snowy January moonlit night 🏞️. Met my absolute favourite scientist in the world at a London airport, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, when I was only supposed to have a layover at the airport but decided to abandon my flight back home ✈️ and check out London instead (only managed to ask for an autograph ✍️, as selfies were not even a thing at the time). Have breathed the air of some of the most iconic cities on earth - New York 🗽 and Moscow 🇷🇺, London 🇬🇧 and Paris 🇫🇷, Athens 🇬🇷 and Rome 🇮🇹, Berlin 🇩🇪 and Hong Kong 🇭🇰, and still counting. Been the official photographer of various music festivals with amazing good vibes, music, atmosphere, people and performers 🎶. Been an accredited member of the Estonian delegation to the Eurovision song contest in Helsinki, Moscow, Oslo and Kiev 🎤. Wrote a book, which became a small international bestseller and partly seeded a whole new industry 📖.

Also was cast in a minor role in a Hollywood blockbuster (Christopher Nolan's "Tenet") but most recently acted in a movie together with Stephen Lang. And if you don't know who Stephen Lang is, then he was the main villain in James Cameron's "Avatar" and also in "Avatar: The Way of Water" 🤖. And if you've seen the movie and still don't remember - he was the tough muscular military dude in a robot suit with a huge scar on his face. Those are his most famous roles but I was a fan of his also based his other movies (the main villain in "Conan the Barbarian" and "Don't Breathe"). I had no idea though that they were filming a movie with him right here in Estonia and I'd be acting alongside him until I arrived on the set and saw his picture on the mirror while having my hair and makeup done 😮. Turns out - he was the main villain again and I was one of the henchmen. Really cool dude and we managed to talk about his life in NYC, his family, his movie career, the movie business, US politics etc during the downtimes that are common during movie production. Also I hope none of the producers see this, as my contract in fact forbids me to even mention anything about the movie for the next 10 years 🤫 So yeah, that was more than one thing, but hopefully that one amazing thing to top them all is still ahead. 🙏

Bonus episode: amazing things I almost did. Almost visited the World Trade Center twin towers before 9/11 in New York as a child, but unfortunately twisted my ankle the day before and could not walk with the tour group, so missed the chance and still regret it 😔. Almost visited the Taj Mahal in India 🕌, but was bitten by a mosquito 🦟 and went down with the tropical chikungunya fever a few days before the visit, only to be able to walk on trembling feet just hours before my flight out of the country. Almost shook the hand of the "former next president of the US" Al Gore during his visit to Tallinn, but shoved my hands deeper into my pockets when he approached to shake my hand, as I did not like him at the time (I do now) 🤦. Almost met Russian president Putin when he made a surprise visit to the Eurovision press center in Moscow where I was also working as a photographer but that was the morning I decided to sleep in and arrived only after he had left (but now in hindsight not that amazing considering what he has done and is still doing in Ukraine).

Teach, Learn, Share

Being a photographer I can either give you tips on photography or take some photos 📸, being a fan of boardgames I can teach or play with you any game from my collection 🎲 and being a movie fan I'd be happy to watch any regular or 3D movie from my waiting list of about 400+ movies (you can choose of course) 🎬.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I can share my passion for boardgames 🎲 (I usually travel with a few we can try out), photography 📷 (I can give tips or take professional photos) or movies 🎥.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Estonia