I used to have a very detailed CS profile, from 2008 to 2023, with around 200 friends and about 150 references, but unfortunately I stopped using it a couple years ago and I lost it. The CS people say they cannot recover it.

I am a Canadian writer, teacher, and vice-president of a company that offers language programs in Texas. I have traveled to almost 100 countries, lived on ve continents, and written eight books. I speak Chinese, Spanish, French, and English, and can understand Portuguese, German, Italian, and Japanese reasonably well.

I have a ton of travel stories; check out the “One Amazing Thing I’ve Done” section below!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I have stories to tell, books to share, music to play, places to recommend, hopes and dreams to collaborate on.

Music, Movies, and Books

BOOKS:
English: George Orwell, Upton Sinclair, Cormac McCarthy, Hubert Selby Jr...
Spanish: Borges, Galeano, Cortazar, Rulfo, Benedetti, Labatut...
French: Rabelais, Sartre, Camus...
Japanese: Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Murakami Ryu...
Italian: Boccaccio, Calvino...
Chinese: Luxun, Wu Cheng'en...
Portuguese: Fernando Pessoa, Guimaraes Rosa...
Czech: Milan Kundera, Karel Čapek
Serbo-Croatian: Mario Suško, Slavenka Drakulić, Ivo Andrić and Milorad Pavić
Polish: Ryszard Kapuscinski
Russian: Dostoeyevski

MOVIES: Some of my favorites are:
Last Tango in Paris,
Secretary (The 2002 one, with Gyllenhall)
El Lado Oscuro del Corazon,
Chinatown,
Wild at Heart,
Memento,
Brazil,
The Passenger (with Jack Nicholson), and
Requiem for a Dream

Documentary lms I recommend:
About travel and the beauty of life in general; "Baraka," and "Ashes and Snow"
About Chile and Argentina: "Operation Condor", and "Memorias del Saqueo"
About Brazil: "Manda Bala"
About Guatemala: "When the Mountains Tremble"
About Jamaica: "Life and Debt"
About Bolivia: "Our Brand is Crisis" and "The Devil's Miner"
About Cuba: Oliver Stone's "Comandante" (a positive viewpoint) and "Looking for Fidel" (a negative one),
About the USA: "Marjoe," "Food Inc.," "The Annabel Cheong Story," "The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan," "Killer at Large," "The Atomic Cafe," "Outrage," "The World According to Monsanto," "The War Pro fiteers," "Why We Fight"...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Participating in the Japanese Naked Man Festival in Okayama where 9000 men fight each other for fertility icons in a Buddhist temple...

Trekking for two years through 25 countries in Latin America, and stopping in every capital city to write one short story...

Studying traditional Chinese medicine and pressure-point massage near Beijing, and deep-tissue Thai massage in Chiang Mai...

Bicycling through the whole length of Cuba after being given a touring bike by a Couchsurfing friend...

Bungee jumping 150 meters in Greece because the pitch was "cheapest place in the world to bungee jump" (probably not the best reason to sign the waiver)...

Doing a reading of my poetry and short stories in the Museum of Macedonia and then being invited out for drinks by a woman named (no joke) "Arsenic" and her friend, who turned out to be the city's female chief of police--and a published poet... =')

Learning eight languages and then torturously forgetting them word by word and day by day...

Being chased by a police helicopter after dumpster diving with a group of CS friends in Pasadena...

Traveling almost the full length of the Amazon River by boat, including a visit to the incredibly hedonist Boi Bumba festival on the island of Parantins where I unwittingly wound up sharing a boat booked exclusively for gays and lesbians for six days...

Interviewing an opposition leader in Myanmar shortly before he was arrested (on fake charges) and thrown in jail for 13 years...

Observing a contract killing by a group of hitmen right outside my bus window in Honduras...

Seducing a woman who “hates all kinds of poetry!” with my poetry... =-)

Watching the Chinese student in front of me vomit with stress as we took the top level Japanese exam together in Inner Mongolia...

Living for seven years in Asia and traveling through nearly every country on the continent...

Couchsurfing with a dominatrix, a multi-millionaire, a polygamous family, an exonerated ex-convict, a Nobel Prize-nominated writer, a porn star...

Running my first marathon in 2002... and doing my 1st shadeless, waterless desert marathon in Saudi Arabia ten years later... =D

Arriving in the capital of Tibet on the exact day of the 50th anniversary of its "liberation" by the gov't of China, and watching the gala festivities...

Being picked up by police of cer for “illegal hitchhiking” in Mexico only to end up making a friend for life...

Being invited to a random Muslim man's wedding in Urumuqi, and offered the eyes of a boiled goat as an honored guest...

Seeing the pyramids of Egypt and Teotihuacan, the temples of Borobudur and Bagan, the beaches at Lencois Maranhenses and Botafogo, the view of the blue city of Jodhpur from the mountain fortress that towers above it...

Thwarting attempted robberies in Cambodia and Argentina and Ecuador and China and Nicaragua and Cuba...

Almost stepping on a six-foot diamondback rattlesnake while obliviously listening to music on my iPod in New Mexico...

Doing a 6-month road trip through 35 states of the USA in a donated car and not having to spend a single dollar on accommodation in the whole half year (thanks to CS!)...

Getting lost for three days and almost dying in the Andes Mountains, while condors circled overhead, waiting to eat my corpse...

Being taken to an unforgettable New York City S & M club by two “innocent country girls” I saved from harassment on New Years Eve of the year 2000 (my 23rd birthday)...

Visiting drug cartel-controlled villages in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and staying in a home riddled with more than 100 bullet holes...

Wwoo fing on an organic farm in Costa Rica...

Finishing my first published story, first historical fiction book, first play, first book of poetry, first screenplay...

Doing my 1st public reading of my writing in a cafe in Lithuania and coming to the realization that maybe this was something I was good at... Then doing more in Serbia, Macedonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Bosnia...

Watching students I taught go on to become medical doctors in Saudi Arabia...

Seeing refugees from war-torn countries that were sponsored at my institute in Austin, Texas give TED talks and go on to become successful professionals in the USA...

Having Canadian students I taught to be ESL teachers y to Iran, Japan, Brazil, etc. and tell me how much they loved their experiences working abroad...

Meeting amazing people everywhere and being constantly humbled by the recognition of how little I know and how little I have done...

What I Can Share with Hosts

I can share my writings, especially the ones about my travels, but also my short stories, historical fiction, poetry, etc.

I often give a digital “Couchsurfing Gift Pack” folder as a gift to my hosts, with music, lms, and some copies of my books.

I can teach you some basics about other languages if you are pIanning a trip abroad.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kosovo, Laos, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Somalia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Wales

Countries I’ve Lived In

Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Malta, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, United States