CURRENT MISSION

Explore as much of the world as I can before I start feeling lazy and old.

ABOUT ME

I'm a recent college grad making my way through yet another year of trying to master Arabic, this time through a fellowship in Cairo. So far so good, but it's still an uphill battle. I grew up in a small but very beautiful town on the Hudson River in upstate New York that I didn't appreciate very much at the time. Now that I've been away for several years, I realize how much I miss things like rain and mountains and autumn leaves that don't exist so much in Cairo. I'm into most of life in moderation, but a few things I really love include riding night trains, experimenting with unusual cuisines (eating them, not cooking them... since our oven has a gas leak), Scrabble marathons, bagels with lox and cream cheese, Cairo juice stands, researching cultural events in this city, and drinking my Cairo tap water out of a swanky wine bottle.

PHILOSOPHY

They lose the day in waiting for the night, and the night in fearing the dawn. -Seneca

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've only couchsurfed once so far, in Ghent, Belgium in 2010. It was great but it's been awhile since then.

Interests

• dogs
• cooking
• wine
• cheese
• drinking
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: 100 Years of Solitude, The Little Prince, Symposium, The Phantom Tollbooth, Lolita, The Geography of Bliss

Music: Cheb Khaled, Mana, Bob Dylan, Rachid Taha, Simon & Garfunkel, The Tallest Man on Earth, The Sparrows, Maghna Khan, Mounir, Amr Diab, Cairokee, K'naan. Music that mixes languages and genres.

Movies: Amelie, 500 Days of Summer, Much Ado About Nothing, Barry Lyndon, Paris Je T'aime, Notting Hill

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

At the edge of the Somali region of Eastern Ethiopia, in the city of Harar, I fed the domesticated hyenas by having a piece of raw meat dangled over my head on a stick. The hyena came out of the bushes and pounced on my shoulders, like a big friendly dog.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Dominica, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Grenada, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Qatar, Spain, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Egypt, France, United States