My 209 Cat House is open to visitors, a few blocks from the Central Bus station in an edge suburban neighborhood of single family homes. St Pete is a great city for food, beaches and music; and very multi-culti. Summer is four months of hot, hot, hot. June is gay pride month and omnipresent, a lot of fun.

209 Cat House has a large living room; a small kitchen; one bathroom; and two small bedrooms, each with queen sized beds. There is a lot of outdoor covered space and a primitive open back yard. I share the place with six sweet indoor/outdoor cats. There are also six possums who love to eat in the kitchen with my cats after sunset. Go figure.

St Pete is a city of food, nightlife, and the Dali Museum among others. Central Ave is a few steps away, a great food and drink scene plus a free trolley that goes east to the downtown harbor. Fabulous beaches are a fifteen minute bus ride to the west. St Pete streets are laid on a grid basis, easy to navigate by foot, bike or car. Fifteen minutes to our south is the lesbian/gay capital of the US south, Gulfport, and very artsy/musical/literate.

You are responsible for your own food, but there is a good chance I might cook for you. You may use my kitchen staples, which are plentiful and include the exotics I bring home from my travels. Tell me you know how to take care of kitchenware and the doors will be open. There is plenty of refrigerator space and a large outdoor freezer. Walmart is 300 yards away and a mini-mart and small urban liquor store are closer at 100 yards. Aldi is one mile away. Belonging to Instacart is useful if you want deliveries.

I have beach blankets for some of the best beaches in the US. This is Florida, one of the front lines of climate change, and daytime temps are near 90F from June 1 until October 1, Big rain comes every few days with brilliant sun during summer.

Water and electricity are precious commodities so please don't waste them. The AC is set for 80F. Please keep windows and doors closed. You will always need to clean up immediately after your kitchen activities since counter space is limited and bugs are everywhere here in Florida.

Mass transit in Florida sucks but I am only 300 yards to the central bus terminal. Getting here from the Tampa airport requires Uber/taxi and is expensive ($50) although there is an infrequent bus that can get you into St Pete www.psta.nethttps://psta.net/media/5781/route-300x-022722.pdf and connect to the #52 bus which drops you two blocks from my house (one block before the bus terminal). $2.25 for each bus ride., cheap but inconvenient.

https://www.visitstpeteclearwater.com/itinerary/best-hidden-gem-beaches
https://www.facebook.com/JJamesMarzilli/

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I like ToBeOfUse.

Interests

• wildlife
• dining
• cooking
• cocktails
• politics
• traveling
• volunteer work
• blues
• rock'n'roll

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Chocolat; Snatch; Blade Runner (running the range from sweetly erotic to the absurd to the dystopic future).

I am old and so is my music: Richard Thompson, June Tabor, Los Lobos, Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Pink Martini, Nina Simone, Gershwin, world music.

Authors: Jared Diamond, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Mark Kurlansky, Michael Pollan. I mostly read non-fiction in politics, economics, climate change, food and anthropology. I can be really boring.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Two total eclipses of the sun, one in Mexico and one in Venezuela. The hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies that winter in Mexico. The Pacific gray whale breeding waters at Bahia Magdalena. Bio-luminescent plankton in the Galapagos. The aurora in northern Quebec. Petra in Jordan. Patagonia. The Amazon. Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. Meeting my hero Mandela; spending my 40th birthday lunch with the Dali Lama; and working with war refugees who teach you why life is precious.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I am glad to cook for anyone who hosts me.

Countries I’ve Visited

Anguilla, Argentina, Belize, Bermuda, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, England, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands Antilles, Palestine, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Martin (French part), Scotland, Singapore, Sint Maarten (Dutch part), Switzerland, Thailand, United States, Vatican City State, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Virgin Islands, British, Virgin Islands, U.S., Wales

Countries I’ve Lived In

Myanmar, Thailand, United States