⚠️ please take the time to read my profile or at least the about me section.

Please only host me if you are okay with leaving me the key 🔑, I had bad experience in Azerbaijan where I was last minute expected to stay outside for 10 hours after being heavily jetlagged. Hosting without a key only works if the host can go and give tours to the surfer or are home all day. Not I go 10 hours to work and now you survive out there.

Please understand I travel for long times so I cannot always be the perfect guest if I have a bad day, severe lack of sleep or get sick. Please communicate also more clearly about things that are important to you. Sometimes it’s normal to not have our personalities match despite the best intentions.

I have a very bad right eye 👁️please don’t smoke 🚭 around me especially indoors. It’s fine at a little bit of a distance. ⚠️

I am half 🇳🇱 half 🇵🇹 nowadays travelling ✈️ or staying in London 🌆🇬🇧

I have a boyfriend 👩🏼‍❤️‍👨🏻🇨🇳 who does not couchsurf with me

I am vegan 🍃 but I can manage myself. It means no animal products including milk, cheese and eggs.

I play 🎸🪈🎹🎤

I speak 🇳🇱🇬🇧🇵🇹🇩🇪 and I learn 🇷🇺🇨🇳🇯🇵

I like to take photos 📸 and make videos to hopefully one day become a YouTuber 🎥

My Instagram: @zenithseye 🌸
My WeChat: wxid_cavu8jz4p8tx12 🌼 (currently can’t log in so actually nvrmnd WeChat lol)
My YT: Mara Bakkenhoven 🌺

https://youtu.be/-i68v7EQHAQ?si=U6Vn2wc300sPH4wE

As a person who grew up between the tulips fields of the Netherlands, life felt quite monotone. My country is small, the tulips are only in bloom for a few months per year and the rain never relenting. My heritage of the lands of far away explorers makes me want to see what I cannot see beyond horizon. As soon as I realised my capabilities of going abroad, I didn’t hesitate a single second. I lost my momentum during the world’s shutdown at the age where people are figuring out what to do with their lives. But now I’m back in full swing. The goal of seeing every country one day is vividly imprinted on my mind. I want to see more than what I know. The cultural exchanges, talks and help from the local people turn it into a far more memorable experience than the 4 walls of a closed in box after booking a hotel for the night.

Right now I’ve been travelling Japan for some weeks and I look forward to going further south than Osaka 🇯🇵🌸

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To meet new cool people to have a great time with and have the local experience to also get that deeper information that you don't get staying in a hotel by yourself

Interests

I already mentioned them in my bio :)

• arts
• singing
• fashion
• photography
• vegan
• running
• traveling
• music
• rock music
• guitar
• metal music
• hiking
• geography
• nature
• reading books
• gaming
• museums
• programming
• making friends
• making new friends
• portuguese
• portugal
• making videos
• kazakhstan
• k-drama

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Audioslave, Pearl Jam, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Arctic Monkeys, Guns N' Roses, Måneskin, Muse, Highly Suspect, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Ghost, Iron Maiden, Eric Clapton, Dio, Rammstein, etc.

Also K-pop, but mainly SHINee and Twice

Movies: Some WW2 like Inglourious Basterds/The Pianist/Schindler's List, most Ghibli ones, most Tarantino ones, Limitless, The Last Samurai, The Notebook, I Tonya, But Always, etc.

I really love WW2, documentaries too! I still have many movies to watch actually…

Anime: Monster, Akatsuki no Yona, Fullmetal Alchemist, etc.

Books: The Girl with Seven Names, The Book Thief, This is Going to Hurt, Educated, The Lost Bookshop, Sovietistan, In Search of Kazakhstan, Born a Crime, 1984, The Witcher series, Jane Eyre, Howl's Moving Castle trilogy, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Me Before You, The One Plus One, The Song of Achilles, Circe,The Queen's Gambit, Edgar Allan Poe, The Catcher in the Rye, The Lunar Chronicles, Heidi, Strange Weather in Tokyo, Kim Ji-young born 1982, The Cat who Saved Books, The Midnight Library, From the Land of Green Ghosts, Man’s Search for Meaning, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Anna Karenina, The Priory of the Orange Tree, Feeling is the Secret, Edgar Allan Poe, etc.

I have a large collection of books to still read, just never get around to it because of travelling so I'm always away from my collection :(

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I went on a journey to West Azerbaijan on a small bus and saw some really cool nature and things from the Silk Road

Saw wild horses in Latvia and found a bone

Got robbed in Romania, but they left my backpack behind, only took the money and I just felt grateful the things that actually mattered were still there

Saw the Northern lights in Iceland including a shooting star

Went to an Eric Clapton concert in the desert and got the setlist after F1 Bahrain

Slept one week in the favela Vidigal of Rio de Janeiro and had a better time than a supposedly "safe" neighbourhood were I was for 19 days

Attended a festa dos tabuleiros in my Portuguese hometown called Tomar

Saw F1 in Baku Azerbaijan at the Ischeri Sheher grandstand, very hot, but cool experience and also the only time in my life I will have seen Vettel in action

Final Black Sabbath concert in Germany before they moved on to the British Isles and disbanded and I had golden circle tickets

Travelling 5 continents within 1 year while originally I thought I was going nowhere that year

Teach, Learn, Share

Well I speak Dutch, English and Portuguese enough to teach and also play the guitar. Probably some other random stuff I can't think of

What I Can Share with Hosts

My great energy, crazy travel stories and whatever I could help with.

I can also help with dishes, but preferably only with gloves 🙂

Countries I’ve Visited

Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Netherlands, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan

Countries I’ve Lived In

Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, United Kingdom