CURRENT MISSION

To promote sustainability and great travel experiences throughout the world.

ABOUT ME

I'm currently a grad student in environmental policy. I love being outdoors and have undergrad degrees in ecology and English. I am equally at home in hiking boots and high heels (the Austin hippie is slowly but surely taking over my inner Dallas gal.)

PHILOSOPHY

Everyone is moving too quickly through life - we all need to slow down, eat slowly, walk slowly, have long conversations, and definitely get out of our comfort zones to learn new things.

For me nature is very spiritual, which is partially why I put such a high priority on sustainability.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I have been in charge of reception for foreign interns visiting Houston through IAESTE (the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience) and now I'd love to continue welcoming people to Texas through CS.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I am totally new to Couchsurfing.

Interests

hiking, biking, art and culture festivals, live music, long dinners, soccer, organic gardening, registering people to vote, volunteering, Irish stepdancing, insects and flowers and trees

• birds
• fish
• insects
• arts
• culture
• festivals
• cooking
• dieting
• flying
• gardening
• flowers
• traveling
• knitting
• music
• live music
• outdoor activities
• cycling
• fishing
• hiking
• soccer
• ecology
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

movies - Offside, Walk the Line, Bend it Like Beckham
books - Freakonomics, The Botany of Desire, The United States of Europe, The Hot Zone
music - Portishead, MGMT, MIA, Bon Iver

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I spent a summer in the Costa Rican rainforest studying these giant flying grasshoppers (saltamontes) that are as big as birds, honestly. I wanted to see if their coloration was at all connected to the fact that their diet made them kind of poisonous to monkeys. I defintely did lick a grasshopper at one point to see if my tongue went numb.

Anyhow, the whole experience in the rainforest was pretty incredible - I slept in tents, bathed in streams, got a beetle stuck in my ear, learned to fish by hand reel (aka Cuban yo-yo), saw snakes and caymans and coatis and howlers and tapirs and sharks, and spent days tramping around in the pouring rain and blinding sun. It was great.

Teach, Learn, Share

I love to bake and I can cook a few things and am eager to learn to cook more! I'm good at gardening and resurrecting dying houseplants. I know how to sew and would love to learn to knit.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Switzerland, United States