CURRENT MISSION

Cycle around the world!

ABOUT ME

I like chickens!

Well yes, I guess I do, but I also like many other things. Like adventures and bubblegum (the sugar- and artificial sweetener-free version - What do you mean there are none without either? Ah well, I guess I do not like bubblegum that much then).
I am not entirely sure why but my passport keeps on insisting that I am around 40ish. I really do not have a clue how and when that came to be...

As you may start to deduct already (and rightly so, I might add), I am a slightly mad German. A slightly mad German who really loves the new and unexplored.

I recently watched "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", which made me decide to cycle around the world for a few years.

PHILOSOPHY

I am a great fan of live and let live!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Only because of the free showers and accommodation, of course!

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Well, I will probably be looking for hosts all over the world soon.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

As of now - none.

Interests

I am an absolute beginner in photography, I used to be a sailing and skiing instructor, I am strangely and morbidly fascinated by world politics (despite my ancient age I am still a somewhat left-leaning idealist), I can dance(!), and I can cook (and even eat) ridiculously hot curries!

I want to travel the world and suck out the very marrow from the bones of this funny and incredibly odd thing we call life.

• cats
• chickens
• photography
• dancing
• waltz
• cooking
• instructor
• politics
• traveling
• cycling
• sailing
• skiing
• teaching

Music, Movies, and Books

Catch 22, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Asterix and Obelix, and just about a few tons of all kinds of books and topics including a few philosophers such as Epikur, Seneca, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Plutarch etc. but these are just for bragging, really. Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams are definitively funnier than those last few.

Favorite movies:
Dead Poets Society, The Usual Suspects, Forrest Gump, Star Wars (I admit to having been a Star Wars nerd), all Monty Pythons (Albatross!), Schindler's List and many more.

Favorite music: All kinds of pop, Beethoven (especially the 9th obviously - but making me listen to the 7th, 2nd movement will get a somewhat deranged and departed-from-this-world look on my face every time), 60s, 70s, 80s pop and rock, Powerwolf and tons of other stuff - I still fail to grasp jazz, however - which I regret somewhat.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I stood less than 30 cm next to a live Black Mamba in the bush of Zimbabwe! (But I only realized it was one later that day and it just buggered off under a rock without killing anyone - kind of a triple-anticlimax, really); shortly thereafter I fell into the middle of a river full of crocodiles and skied down slopes most people take in free fall (not I though, sir no no no (really) (no really, really!)).

I also managed to spend a very short amount of time in a Russian jail after refusing to bribe the policemen... I ended up being in a cell with a bunch of drunk Russians --- where I actually had a grand time once I realized that the real criminals were separated from me by a set of heavy duty steel bars (even though they had the keys). Me not speaking Russian made the communication with the drunkards quite fun because it made me about as interesting as some sort of alien that had just been dropped onto my fellow inmates by express teleportation from somewhere around the vicinity of Pluto.

I once asked an Australian prostitute in earnest and genuinely interested how her parents came up with her name "Antoinette"... I really doubt that I will ever be able to conjure a similar look of bewilderment, disbelief and total disillusionment with the human race on another person's face again.

So far only South America has refused to host me for at least a month or so. All the other continents have been much more hospitable. I shall have to talk to someone about that at some point.

I also very strongly suspect that I am an involuntary surrogate father - I guess that is pretty amazing in a somewhat twisted sort of way... I really wonder if this qualifies as "occupational hazard" for a french kissing instructor :-/

Then there was this time when I misread the couchsurfing header asking for ONE amazing thing I habe Seen and done...

Teach, Learn, Share

I can fix PCs! (but don't make me, I hate it)
I can teach you the basics of skiing and sailing and possibly even some English and German. (that I prefer by a mile)

One of your cats needs whispering? Enter the cat-whisperer! Given enough time, no cat has ever been able to resist my left-hook-petting-of-doom.

Want to learn the basic Cha-cha steps? I am your man. (disclaimer: Only the very basic ones - and do not ask me to be incorporating that thingy called rythm) I guess I could teach a few other basic "classic" dance steps such as Waltz or Jive.

I would love to be a teacher of french kissing... But I guess the career options are somewhat limited there. Besides, I have yet to find out which university offers internationally renowned certifications. :-)