Please read my profile before writing your request. After 2 years of not hosting, it is difficult for me to completely close my couch, however at the moment, I am quite stressed for several reasons and I won't be able to host much. I'll be much more motivated to host if you send me a detailed request

CURRENT MISSION

Learning Icelandic, might be my mission for the next 15 years ;)

ABOUT ME

I don't like to start this profile with restrictions but it has become necessary. I receive a lot of requests and host quite a lot too, so please before sending me a request, read my home section. Ground rule is no personalized request, no couch (just using my name doesn't really qualify as personalised).

Since my parents were not travellers I started travelling at the age of 20, doing an internship in Quebec (that's when the travelling bug really kicked in). I worked 10 years as a music librarian in my native Switzerland but took a year off in the middle to study English in San Francisco travel in the US, work as a volunteer and travel in Ecuador and Peru. That is during this gap year that I discovered a passion (and a relative talent) for foreign languages. I have a soft spot for the English language but I have an unquenchable thirst for learning other. I hope one day reach a decent level in ten languages. Next ones, Portuguese (making progress) and Icelandic (see, I don't always go for the obvious or useful ones)

As for my personnality, I find it very difficult to describe one self. I feel sometimes that I am a walking contradiction.

I am warm, caring, have a good sense of humour, am often a bit absent-minded, the head in the stars. In some circumstances, I am a quite shy person (I can even be really awkward in some social situations), but once the contact is established it is not so apparent.

Convinced environmentalist (although not always perfectly coherent), I try to take care of our little blue planet as well as I can. Persuaded that economical degrowth is the only way out of the environmental crisis, I started taking personnal measures to reduce my carbon footprint by rethinking my consumption of edible and non-edible goods (buying as much as possible local, organic and second-hand or not at all). In 2017, I went flightless, this year though... I also drastically reduced my waste (more on that in the other section).

Trying to act beyond the scrictly individual level, I helped organizing the conference of Rob Greenfield a US environmentalist in Lausanne with Zero Waste Switzerland and would like to join political activism

In the same spirit. In may 2016, I stopped eating animal flesh (meaning I'm vegetarian, some interpreted this sentence as vegan 😃) while also reducing dairies and I feel really happy about this decision. I am not judgmental about it but if you wish so I am always happy to share my knowledge, I just feel it's quite important to include that in my profile, so you don't expect me to serve meat if I host you and to let my hosts know about it (don't fundamentally change your habits, I will eat whatever I can (which would be nothing only if you do a meat based unique dish :) )

PHILOSOPHY

Treat people like you want to be treated

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Hosting, surfing, participating to a few events. Recently travelled and volunteered for two months in Brazil, met awesome people

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

After a slow start (not actually using the site for a few years which was such a big mistake!), I can now say that I am an experienced couchsurfer. I used to host a lot in Lausanne but I started to get bored responding to a lot of soulless requests and my replying rate dropped, so did the number of requests

Interests

Travel of course and meeting people

Arts and culture in general, especially music, movies ,literature, dance and contemporary circus.

Foreign languages and linguistics

Nature, I need to live in a city or town where there is culture but can't be away from nature for too long, or at least enjoy the parks with good company or a good book.

Tennis (watching, used to very badly play), hiking.

History, politics and social justice

Cooking and eating

and too many to mention them all

Music, Movies, and Books

Do you have six hours?

Music: Andrew Bird, Fink, Olafur Arnalds, Mumford and Sons, Sigur Ros, Vampire Weekend, Paolo Nutini, Midlake, Lhasa, Damien Rice, Regina Spektor, The Frames, Piers Faccini, Gianmaria Testa, Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens, Ella Fitzgerald, Two Door Cinema Club, REM, Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, Lynda Lemay, Madeleine Peyroux, Bruce Springsteen, El Hadj N'Diaye, Gianmaria Testa, Frederic Chopin, Otis Redding, Brad Mehldau, manouche jazz, Pierre Lapointe, blues, David Bowie, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, classic soul music, Jacques Brel, Hans Zimmer, bossa nova, Paolo Conte, Johnny Cash, Alain Souchon, Belle and Sebastian, french music with good lyrics... and many many others.

http://www.lastfm.fr/user/swissmariposa

Movies: Eternal Sunshine of A Sportless Mind, Dances with Wolves, Amelie Poulain, Se souvenir des Belles choses, Dancer in the Dark, En Familie, Ken Loach, The Coen Brothers, Maria Full of Grace, The Full Monty, Billy Eliott, Boy A, Schindler's List, Pedro Almodovar,
The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, C.R.A.Z.Y, 12 angry men, American Beauty, The life of others, Cinema Paradiso, Almost Famous, Restless, Ferzan Ozpetek

Books: mainly contemporary american and english literature, Paul Auster, Douglas Kennedy, Kate Atkinson, Lionel Shriver, JK Rowling, Khaled Hosseini, John Steinbeck but also Isabel Allende, Daniel Pennac, Jean Rouaud, Michel Tremblay, Daniel Glattauer...
Lately, I started to read more non-fiction books. In the last months two books had a big impact on me. Sapiens, a brief history of humankind by Yuval Noah Harari and This changes everything: capitalism vs climate by Naomi Klein. I am also a huge fan of travel/science... writer Bill Bryson

I could go on and on. I am a big fan of those 3 arts

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

One only? Mission impossible.

Trekkings in New Zealand

Horse riding in New Zealand (yes I have a thing for NZ)

Living with some cool nuns (despite being not very religious) in Peru, where I also realised one of my oldest dreams, seeing Machu Picchu

The most amazing things are sometimes the simplest. Like this old lady smiling to me and touching my shoulder in Guatemala

And I hope one day being able to kill the chicken in me and go skydiving

Teach, Learn, Share

I can certainly help you improving your French or teach you the basics

I love learning foreign languages, I speak already a few but would love to improve them or learn the basics of a few others (Japanese, Icelandic, slavik languages) and about life in other countries and also their history.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Ireland, Switzerland

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