CURRENT MISSION

Every day is a new adventure

ABOUT ME

I'm Melanie, 28 years old and a social, enthousiastic, energetic person. Quite busy with finishing medical school and working full-time in the hospital, but at night and in the weekends I'm in for anything. I live in Amsterdam now for 5 years and I love this city. I'd like to share my enthousiasm by showing people around. So if you didn't come to Amsterdam to smoke weed, but to enjoy the beautiful architecture, ride a bicycle, just walk around or dance all night long, I'm your host. I won't always have time, but I'll try. Meeting travellers in Amsterdam and learn about your culture will make me feel like travelling, even when I'm at home :-).

I did a lot of small trips for a few weeks, for example to Thailand, South-Africa, Canada and Australia. Flew very cheap because my dad worked at the KLM :-). My first big trip was in 2005 when I travelled around Russia (transmongolian railway), Mongolia, China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia for 6 months. This was just after the first 4 years of medical school and I promised myself to do this again. Then I did a PhD for 3.5 years and worked my ass off. So when I finally finished my PhD and started my internships in the hospital I wanted to do as many internships abroad as possible: I just came back from 5 months in Southern Africa and 4 months in Central-America/the Carribean. I loved it!

PHILOSOPHY

Carpe Diem.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None yet, time to get started!

Interests

Medicine, travelling, diving in Holland and anywhere else, cycling in the city and the countryside, hiking, swimming, going out with friends, dancing, creative stuff like sewing, making jewelry, cooking, reading, my family, other cultures, languages.

• culture
• architecture
• dancing
• cooking
• walking
• reading
• traveling
• cycling
• hiking
• scuba diving
• track and field
• swimming
• emergency services
• languages
• medicine

Music, Movies, and Books

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, one of the most amazing books I've ever read.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've travelled around Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras with a friend of mine how is wheelchair-bound. One day we were close to a vulcano with a stunning blue lagoon in El Salvador. The lagoon was 2 hours uphill walking on a very steep and narrow track. After talking to a police man for a while, he proposed that he and his team could carry my friend on a stretcher all the way up. And this was what happened! We hiked up to the lagoon and my friend was carried by 10 El Salvadorian policeman. GREAT!

Teach, Learn, Share

I'd love to learn more Spanish.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Botswana, Cambodia, Canada, China, Egypt, El Salvador, Gambia, Honduras, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Russian Federation, South Africa, Thailand, United States, Zimbabwe

Countries I’ve Lived In

Aruba, Netherlands, South Africa

•