Hello,
My name is Etienne. With my wife, Carol, we live in Fourquevaux, a lovely small village situated 17kms east of Toulouse. Our three children having left home ( or almost...) , we now have quite a bit of spare room in our house. We can accommodate families or several travelers at once, but please note that our home will be much more appropriate for travellers prepared to enjoy the countryside than the nightlife of Toulouse, especially if you do not have a car !

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

We have created our couchsurfing account for over three years now, and have been rather surprised that so few people contact us to come to stay with us yet. Will you be one of the first ones ?

Interests

One of my main occupations outside of work is taking care of our associative village shop, as well as our village fete committee, organizing annual events like our summer fete as well as one shot cultural events (concerts, balls, plays, circus acts, children story telling ...). I love going out to live events such as concerts or theatre plays especially in small venues, which allows me to scout for things we could program in Fourquevaux.
I also love the sea, and sailing in particular (I often crew on other people's boats)
Both Carol and I are biology scientists. Carol currently works as a freelance editor, and I carry out research on a variety of subjects including biophysics, and evolution. Be warned: if you get me started to talk on evolution and especially speciation, I can probably talk about it until your ears drop off !

• theater
• concerts
• cooking
• nightlife
• surfing
• sailing
• biology
• teaching
• freelancing
• sign language

Music, Movies, and Books

I have very eclectic tastes in everything : music, movies, books, food ... I can enjoy all sort, as long as its good !

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I went to South Africa to crew on a big catamaran, and we sailed past the Cape of Good Hope. I have also completed the crossing of the Atlantic ocean from east to west. The next challenge will be to do it from west to east ...

Teach, Learn, Share

I can say from experience that I am, unfortunately, not a very good teacher (most of the time I go too fast in explaining and really struggle to slow down to the pace required for people who are learning).
A few years ago, after seing a couple of very nice theater plays in sign language, I decided to start learning it myself. One of my biggest disappointments at the start was to realize that it is not at all international, but very local (people in Paris and in Toulouse already sign quite differently ...). The second surprise was how hard it actually is to learn compared to a spoken language, probably because it uses completely different processes and different parts of the brain.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I really enjoy cooking. If you come to stay with us (and give us enough notice), I will probably try to get a nice meal together so that we can all share it.

Countries I’ve Visited

England, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

England, France, United States