Puede aceptar invitados
- Índice de respuesta del 0%
- Última conexión hace 4 meses
Únete a Couchsurfing para ver el perfil completo de Chris.
Resumen
Sobre mí
CURRENT MISSION
To travel light, stay in motion, reach out to people. Travelling without children, mates, or architecture students. Keep it simple... 9 Kg backpack, no more than 45 days per trip. On the road up to 20 weeks per year, made up of many trips.
March, 2017. Got involved in a design project when I met a Cambodian doctor in a coffee house in Phnom Penh who invited me to visit the site of - and give him ideas for - a new school of nursing for the University of Kam Phong Cham. Working pro bono - for plane tickets and expenses - I've visited Cambodia twice since then. Currently consulting my doctor friend on the curriculum for a new school of architecture he's involved with, returning to SE Asia in the next six months. Yes, I'm retired!
ABOUT ME
From my hitchhiking days in college I learned my role was to ask a few questions and let the driver do most of the talking, which is why he picked up a hitchhiker, for company, someone to talk to...
Since then I've asked hundreds of strangers to tell me their stories, or as much as they're willing to share. Not everybody's story is brilliant, of course, but four out of five have been interesting, which is more than I expected.
PHILOSOPHY
1. REACH OUT TO PEOPLE, who will respond if they sense you're genuinely interested in them. Fortunately I've always been interested in people. And luckier still, I find people welcome the chance to talk about themselves, to share their stories, especially with an interested/interesting stranger.
2. DON'T LOOK DOWN ON PEOPLE, they don't like it.
3. KNOW HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH.
Por qué estoy en Couchsurfing
HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING
I support the idea of Couchsurfing, of course, but don't host much because I travel so much and rarely know when I'll be in Oxford. As for surfing... onr day I will. However, I talk to and hang out with so many local people (plus fellow travellers in hostels) that I usually don't want to be a guest and lose the freedom to discover things for myself.
COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE
Working and travelling in India in the early 80's, having arrived in Madras from Trivandrum, I found myself walking through a dark night looking for a place to sleep. Suddenly I saw a building covered with a thousand lights. It was a Hindu wedding and I was invited by a family member to share the wedding meal with hundreds of other guests. We became friends. They took me in for eight days! Couchsurfing before they called it that.
Intereses
Travel, film, politics, sports, art, dance, music, education, and The Wire, Seinfeld, The West Wing, Homeland, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Gilmore Girls. My current reading includes The Spirit Level (about unequal societies) and books about Watergate, the journalist Walter Lippmann, and Lincoln and Slavery. Started War and Peace, but stalled, despite recognising Tolstoy's greatness.
Some favourites, off the cuff: Shakespeare's Lear, Twain's Huckleberry, Michael Herrs' Dispatches, Jackie Robinson stealing home in a World Series, Mohammad Ali coming back three times, Valery Brumel breaking the world high jump record, Bill Shankly, screaming at Fox News, Beethoven raising the bar, Lincoln's compassion, Darwin's thoroughness, Beuys' poignant narratives, Turner's seascapes, Corb's Ronchamp, Ping Yao in China, Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, Thommanon Temple in Angkor, JFK's style, FDR's fireside chats, Velazquez' Las Meninans, Sylvie Guilleme's grace, Fellini's 8 and 1/2, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, Bach's civilised world, Rachel Maddow, Dylan on Highway 61, Lou Reed's experiments, Junior Walker and the All-stars, James Brown feeling good, and Bob Marley, who I saw at the Rainbow in London, think it was '73, no... 77! And on the sporting front, the Red Sox comeback against the Yankees in 2004, the Patriot's comeback in the 2017 Super Bowl, and Liverpool FC's return to the top under Jurgen Klopp.
- arts
- books
- architecture
- design
- dancing
- education
- walking
- politics
- news
- reading
- traveling
- music
- backpacking
- surfing
- hinduism
- sports
- teaching
- journalism
- nursing
- hitchhiking
Países que he visitado
Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, China, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russian Federation, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Viet Nam
Países en los que he vivido
United Kingdom, United States
Insignias antiguas
-
Insignia de pionero